The impassioned delivery from chief health officer Jeannette Young follows a hostile week where the Palaszczuk government defiantly refused to commit to a plan to open borders.During a tense press conference just hours before national cabinet, Dr Young grew viscerally upset when her role as a health boss was questioned.“Can you please remember who I am,” Dr Young said on Friday morning.“I stand up here every day but ultimately I went into medicine to save lives. “I’m not comfortable with any deaths that are preventable. So that’s why I want every single Queenslander who can be vaccinated to get vaccinated because that is the best protection, and that’s why I’ve spent the last 19 months doing everything I can.”When Dr Young was then pressed on why she was making political decisions in her role as chief health officer, she furiously snapped back.“I’m not making political decisions,” she said.“I am making, sorry you’ve got me quite upset now, I do not want to see any case of a Queenslander that is preventable, whether it be due to smoking, due to obesity, due to high alcohol intake, due to accidents that could have been prevented due to road trauma.“I could go on, that is what I’ve just spent the last 16 years of my life working on. So, I don’t want to see any deaths.”Debate between Queensland and the Morrison government has continued to ramp up with Annastacia Palaszczuk’s refusal to commit to a plan to open borders when vaccine coverage reaches a certain threshold.On Thursday, the Premier said the Doherty Institute modelling, preferred by national cabinet, predicted more than 2000 deaths a month if borders were opened at 70 per cent vaccination protection.Amid the bitter back-and-forth between Queensland and the commonwealth, Dr Young was asked when she would be comfortable to open borders.“When every single Queenslander has been given the opportunity to be vaccinated,” she replied.“So it is up to individuals to choose whether they wish to protect themselves, and people make choices about a whole range of things every single day. “So once every single Queenslander who is part of the vaccine rollout is eligible, which today is some 12 to 15 and all 16-plus, once they’ve had that opportunity, of course, then we make decisions.“But I would not want to see the virus coming into Queensland without mitigating factors until that’s happened.”
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