Lots of vaccine hesitancy here in Australia still. We're a mess right now. People in health related jobs are still on waiting lists here although I feel a sudden frantic change during the past week with other States having major problems with spreading of the Delta variant.

My daughter works in radiology and still hasn't been called up despite her being in a top level in the roll-out. People over 60 with serious illness are still on waiting lists and then having to play dice with Astrazeneca as it's the only one the GPs will give us because that's all the Federal government has given them with Pfizer being kept for the young.

I live in a regional area and it's not all that long ago that they put in the necessary refrigeration for storage of Pfizer. All this time later. (Mid winter day temp yesterday of 29C in my town). Pfizer and Astrazeneca are the only options we have and the latter has its own problems and Pfizer is in short supply.

The hesitancy here, in my opinion, has been mainly caused by government incompetency and mixed messaging and the usual misinformation. 'Too many cooks'.

For many of us who have serious health issues to begin with, it's actually been extremely difficult getting helpful information from our doctors even though that's where we should be getting it. It's been the usual blanket advice.

Here we have to sign a waiver. They're calling it "informed consent" but in fact, nobody is really giving individual health information for us to consent to and it's basically just paperwork covering legal indemnity for health professionals giving us the vaccines in case something does go wrong.

Everyone should be talking to their doctors and if they're not getting the information they need then they need to keep talking. In my situation I finally found out that my doses needed to be given at a certain point in time in the middle of my treatments.

So, I need to have the vaccine 1/2 way through my 3 week cycle of Immunotherapy. That's because my immune system is highly activated. Side effects for people on immunotherapy for example can include enlarged lymph nodes (as well as potential for the other possible side-effects, emphasis on possible) so if one is having regular 3 montly imaging such as I am then that has to be taken into account as well.

It's all extremely complicated for those with certain conditions and I plead with people to look for their own information and take it back to their doctors if they feel they're being given generic advice and there is anything that they don't understand. We have to look after ourselves. No one else can do that.

In my opinion, don't sign anything until you feel you can actually honestly give informed consent. Once you're in a position to do that then go for it asap.