Below is an excerpt of longer form research, which can be found here.

Katie Lees received her first dose of COVID-19 AstraZeneca on the 22^nd July 2021, after Scott Morrison’s announcement to offer AZ to anyone over 18 [28^th June 2021] – where he ignored Chief Health Officers’ advice to abandon AstraZeneca – but before ATAGI’s officially updated advice on 24th July to ‘strongly consider any vaccine including’ AstraZeneca (based on supply issues of COVID-19 Vaccine Pfizer).

As at the 22^nd July 2021, younger people are ineligible for the BioNTech Pfizer vaccine. There were sadly 135 new cases of COVID-19 mostly linked to one cluster in NSW and we were in lockdown; except case numbers were nowhere near the scale recommended by ATAGI on 10th April 2021 to change their advice, where Professor Allen Cheng (Co-Chair of ATAGI [2018-2021] and Chair of the Advisory Committee on Vaccines – ACV), said ATAGI’s decision to draw the line at preferring the Pfizer vaccine over AstraZeneca for those aged under 50 took into account the possibility of a coronavirus outbreak in Australia in the coming months or year.”[9]

22^nd July 2021, (former) NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian stated in the 11am daily press conference “The vaccine is the key to our freedom. If you’re over 40, NSW Health can provide you with AstraZeneca but even if you’re under 40 and you really want to get the vaccine, please ask your GP.”[1]

On the 22nd July 2021, Ange McCormack interviewed Scott Morrison on Triple J’s ‘Hack’, where she asks:
“McCormack: It is a simple question, though. When will young people be able to get vaccinated?
Prime Minister: Well, right now they can get vaccinated right now with AstraZeneca…
McCormack: But that’s not the vaccine ATAGI recommends.”

Eerily, also on the 22^nd July 2021, The Monthly’s Rachel Withers sums up Scott Morrison’s decision to offer AstraZeneca to anyone over the age of 18 on June 28^th 2021:

“A small number of people may, in fact, die from taking AstraZeneca, because they “took responsibility” and came forward and got the one vaccine on offer to them. And that will be on the PM who left them with no real choice.”[2]

Katie’s death is an appalling, horrific tragedy. At the time of her first dose, she was one in approximately 76,595 AstraZeneca COVID-19 first doses [statistic from the PM] administered to people aged under 40 since the announcement was made by Scott Morrison [on 28^th June 2021] to encourage anyone over the age of 18 in Australia to take AstraZeneca.[3]

“If there’s high prevalence of Covid, more people are likely to end up infected and in critical care, and if they’re over-60, more likely to die. In that case, it makes sense to give Oxford/AstraZeneca to everybody. But when there’s a lower prevalence of Covid, an age limit would be appropriate, she [Dr Sue Pavord, consultant haematologist at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust] said.”[4]

23^rd July 2021, NSW 11:00am daily covid-19 press conference providing updates on the state’s COVID-19 crisis [136 locally acquired cases of COVID-19 in the 24 hours to 8pm 22^nd July 2021]:

[NSW State Premier Gladys Berejiklian]: “That is the key to our freedom, the key to us living freely and as openly as possible is getting more jabs in arms and containing the virus. […] There’s lots of AstraZeneca available, if you’re over 40, there is no reason today why you shouldn’t be getting the AstraZeneca. […] We’re talking about doses, we’re talking about jabs in arms, that is what we need and we are doing everything we can as a government to make sure that we maximise in particular the use of AstraZeneca as much as possible […] We’re saying to everybody, please get vaccinated. If you have any concerns, go to your GP. Otherwise book with us, we have capacity for more AstraZeneca […] we are in the middle of a serious outbreak and the risk of dying from covid is much higher than having an adverse reaction to AstraZeneca […] The risk of any adverse uh – condition from the jab, is miniscule compared to the serious illness you can get if you get the covid virus and you don’t have any dose of the vaccine. So I would urge everybody to please follow that health advice and we implore that to be national health advice that we can make sure we have as much use of AstraZeneca as we can. Now, beyond that point, if you are someone that wants the vaccine of AstraZeneca under 40, of course you can go to your GP.”[5]

One argument which comes up time and time again, is the ‘but as a young person, she [Katie] could have died from covid’ conversation. A study from 8^th December 2020 shows the infection fatality rate (IFR) from COVID-19 to be between 0.003 – 0.005; averaging that to 0.004 for the 0 – 34 age group.[6] On 17^th June 2021, the mortality rate from confirmed covid cases and associated deaths in Australia from the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System (NNDSS) shows that for the age range 30-39, it was tragically 2 fatalities from 5,464 confirmed cases of COVID-19. This translates to an 0.03% risk of death from confirmed COVID-19 cases in Australia in June 2021.[7] It does not show the low risk of catching covid whilst isolating in a mandated lockdown in NSW, during June-July 2021. Nor does it consider in the risk equation, the data on the efficacy of the AstraZeneca vaccine against symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection, which as at March 2022, the WHO states as “76%” with the disclaimers: “But this is specific to events from 15 days past second dose, with an inter dose interval of 29 days. […] No substantive data are available related to impact of the vaccine on transmission or viral shedding,” going on to encourage the maintenance of public health and social measures such as masking, physical distancing, ensuring good ventilation…[8]

We shouldn’t have to point out that tragically dying from covid-19 (a serious, transmissible virus capable of causing death) and tragically dying from the AstraZeneca vaccine (human made, government administered, failure of medicine), although both linked explicitly to the COVID-19 pandemic, are two independent events. We’ve already seen frequently throughout our research that other international leaders, experts and studies have informed a decision to protect people from the risk of death from a vaccine whilst still assessing the risk of death from covid-19 transmission by implementing age limits or suspending the use of AstraZeneca altogether out of caution.

On the 10^th July 2021, a risk-benefit analysis for people aged under 60 in Australia investigated TTS following AZ: “For the current situation of low incidence of COVID-19, the risk of fatality from possible TTS or serious morbidity such as stroke in healthy younger adults, is unacceptable in Australia, when there is a choice of other vaccines.”[11] Messaging and risk assessment by the government and media failed to transparently communicate the known higher risk of TTS from AZ for younger women.

It was a Thursday when Katie was vaccinated with AstraZeneca on 22^nd July 2021. This matters because the TGA publishes weekly covid-19 safety reports late on Thursday afternoons. It is the only official record. On Thursday 22^nd July 2021 late in the afternoon, tragically, two deaths were reported by the TGA of two people in their 40’s. Why are tragic deaths from covid-19 reported daily, whilst deaths from vaccines are reported weekly?

Scott Morrison [22^nd July 2021]: “But it is important wherever you are in the country, to please go and see that pharmacist when they’re available or go and see your GP and make sure that you’re getting the AstraZeneca vaccines and similarly, through the state clinics that are providing those AstraZeneca vaccines. And we, of course, encouraging them to do that, that you can go and access them. The vaccines, like any vaccine, with any vaccine, there are there are risks associated, and I won’t go into each of the individual ones because I don’t want to particularly draw attention to anyone. […] I think I’ve been very clear that as Prime Minister I’m responsible for the vaccination program.”[9] 

Surreptitious omissions of vital AstraZeneca vaccine risk assessment information in sweeping slogan-style messaging and NSW State government daily press conferences as it relates to dissemination of medical advice to inform health measures for citizens, is a deceitfulness akin to lying.

Had the government procured enough Pfizer or been as willing to save lives from adverse reactions to vaccines (as seen in other countries), as they were willing to save lives from COVID-19, then these tragic deaths could have been reported sooner, and decisions been made with immediate effect to suspend administration of AstraZeneca. Efficiency of reporting deaths from vaccines linked to the situation of being in a pandemic is something we want to see changed in the future. Had the two tragic deaths of people in their 40’s that week been reported as they happened, would GP’s in NSW have been so willing to administer AstraZeneca to younger people?

Brad Hazzard, NSW Minister for Health [7^th July 2021]: “It’s safe to say that if we had had the [vaccine] supply that we wanted … we wouldn’t now be in this situation [lockdown] here in NSW.”[3]

Anecdotally, a GP shared anonymously – “the government lied” [in relation to risks associated with the AstraZeneca vaccine], and another health professional shared “people will die.”

– Katie Lees’ Family

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[1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-22/nsw-covid-124-new-cases-announced-by-gladys-berejiklian/100313546

[2] https://www.themonthly.com.au/today/rachel-withers/2021/22/2021/1626932997/spins-and-needles

[3] https://www.pm.gov.au/media/press-conference-canberra-act-6

[4] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/11/oxfordastrazeneca-vaccine-rare-blood-clot-syndrome-has-high-mortality-rate

[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVNDPoIFlEU

[6] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7721859/

[7] https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/2021/08/foi-request-2458-covid-19-mortality-data-email-correspondence-covid-19-mortality-data.pdf

[8] https://www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/detail/the-oxford-astrazeneca-covid-19-vaccine-what-you-need-to-know

[9] Source: https://www.pm.gov.au/media/press-conference-canberra-act-6