Three quarters of Australians plan to get COVID-19 vaccination: poll

CANBERRA - Three quarters of Australians plan to have COVID-19 vaccination when the rollout begins, a survey has found.

A special edition of Newspoll published by The Australian on Tuesday found that 75 percent of Australians said that they would either "definitely" or "probably" get vaccinated against COVID-19 compared to 17 percent who said they would not. Eight percent of respondents were undecided.

Support for vaccines was strongest among Australians aged 65 and over while men were more likely to say they would get vaccinated than women.

The Australian government is planning to begin administering vaccines in late February with the aim to offer all Australians the opportunity to be vaccinated by October of this year.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Monday urged Australians to disregard conspiracy theories about vaccines that have circulated on social media.

"We've been very clear to point out where you get your information from," he said in a speech detailing the planned vaccine rollout at the National Press Club.

"You don't get it from Facebook. You get it from official government websites."

The poll of more than 1,500 voters also revealed increasing confidence in the ability of the public health system to cope with outbreaks.

Sixty-nine percent of respondents said they thought the system was well-equipped compared to 59 percent in July 2020.

More than 80 percent said that international travellers should be vaccinated as a condition of travel and 80 percent want vaccines to be mandatory for aged care workers.

As of Monday afternoon, there had been 28,818 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Australia, and the numbers of locally and overseas acquired cases in the last 24 hours were one and seven respectively, according to the latest figures updated on Monday evening from the Department of Health.