Sydney coronavirus: Graphic new ad compared to ‘Grim Reaper’ campaign of the 1980s

A “graphic” COVID-19 advertisement will air in Sydney to highlight the seriousness of the disease.

In the short Commonwealth-funded TV ad, a young woman on oxygen struggles to breathe in a hospital bed as her heart monitor beeps.

She slowly makes eye contact with the camera and gasps for air as a message reads: “COVID-19 can affect anyone. Stay home. Get tested. Book your vaccination.”

Video This graphic Federal Government COVID-19 ad shows a young woman on oxygen struggling to breathe.

Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly said the Australian government had specifically commissioned the ad because of the intensifying outbreak in NSW.

“We are only doing this because of the situation in Sydney and it will be running in Sydney,” he told reporters in Canberra.

“It is quite graphic and it is meant to be graphic – it is meant to really push that message home.”

Vaccine task force leader Lieutenant General John Frewen also described the ad as “confronting and graphic”.

He said it would only run in Sydney, while the “Arm Yourself” campaign would be aired nationwide.

That more G-rated ad shows a series of bare arms with band-aids stuck on to signify they have had the jab.

Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese said it missed the mark.

“We were the best in the world in the campaign against AIDS, we’ve done drink- driving very well,” he told ABC’s Insiders program on Sunday.

“But after 18 months if this is the best they can do, they need to go back to the drawing board.”

Ltn Gen Frewen said the Arm Yourself campaign will be adapted and tailored in the coming months as more Pfizer and Moderna vaccines arrive from overseas.

“It is really October, November and December where we had the vast amounts of vaccine coming through,” he said.

“So we do wish to build up through the year.”

By then, he said Australians can expect something more akin to the celebrity and song and dance-driven advertising vaccination campaigns rolled out in New Zealand and Singapore.

Commenters were quick to point out the similarities between the graphic advertisement and the ‘Grim Reaper’ advertisements of the 1980s that warned about HIV.

Responding to the #ArmYourself ad, some people pointed out that they wanted to get the vaccine but had been unable to due to the government’s vaccine rollout.

“I am 52 and live in rural Victoria. I have been trying to “arm myself” ever since the pfizer vaccine became available for those in my age group and remain unvaccinated,” tweeted a woman named Gabby.

Others were unhappy with the ‘war rhetoric’ in the #armyourself advertisement.

Others lamented the fact that Australia wasn’t more inspired by effective advertisements created by other countries.