Radio legend John Laws and Dr Omar Khorshid talk vaccine facts on 2SM

The ‘Golden Tonsils’ of radio John Laws presented important COVID-19 information to his listeners last week in an interview with AMA President Dr Omar Khorshid.

AMA President Dr Omar Khorshid took to the radio waves last Friday to talk to one of the icons of Australian radio, John Laws, about COVID-19 vaccine misinformation.

Broadcasting on 2SM Sydney, Mr Laws said he was astonished at the amount of misinformation people were so readily able to spread.

Dr Khorshid said in Australia, more than 1900 people had died from COVID-19 and there had been 192,000 cases.

“That's a death rate from COVID of 1 per cent. And of course, if you're over the age of 75, it's more than 10 per cent chance of dying if you get COVID. You get that vaccine, your chance of getting seriously ill through the vaccine is almost zero. And it gives you incredible protection, to the point where you're highly unlikely to end up in hospital, let alone on an ICU ventilator.”

He said there had been nine deaths associated with the vaccines, eight of which were from TTS – out of 37 million doses.

“There is absolutely no scientific argument for not having this vaccine. It is as safe as a vaccine could possibly be. In fact, we've been surprised at just how effective they are in the real world, out in the community,” Dr Khorshid said.

Dr Khorshid also told listeners it was important to get a booster shot after six months of receiving the second vaccination.

“For those who are more than six months down the track, they're now also recommending a booster dose, just to make sure we don't see what we're seeing in other countries, where the virus is making a comeback as the immunity levels drop in the community.”

AMA Vice President Dr Chris Moy was also in the media this week saying Australia’s booster program should go ahead even though many countries around the world are still struggling to vaccinate their populations.

Dr Moy told ABC TV News Breakfast on Tuesday booster shots for frontline workers and the elderly should be prioritised.

He said Australia also had a responsibility to provide vaccines to countries where the majority of people hadn't had their first two shots.

"We do need to pull our weight in making sure the rest of the world is vaccinated and gets access to vaccine as soon as possible and not to lose sight of that," he said.