- Australia is unlikely to have its adult population vaccinated against COVID-19 by October, according to the head of the Department of Health
- Health Secretary Brendan Murphy confirmed on Thursday that Australia’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout had fallen behind schedule
- The delays are being blamed on a lack of available jabs, as only 700,000 AstraZeneca vaccines have made it to Australia
- The Federal Government is yet to complete phase 1a and 1b of the vaccine rollout, which was originally due to be finished by late March
- The date was then pushed back to April — but the Health Secretary is now refusing to say exactly when the phase one rollout will be completed
- Prime Minister Scott Morrison has weighed in on the delays, stating that missing the original October deadline was “not news”
Australia is unlikely to have the balance of its adult population vaccinated against COVID-19 by October, according to the head of the Federal Department of Health.
Health Secretary Brendan Murphy confirmed in a Senate Hearing on Thursday that Australia’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout had fallen behind schedule.
The delays are being blamed on a lack of available jabs, as only 700,000 AstraZeneca vaccines have arrived in Australia to date.
The government had ordered 3.8 million doses of immunisations, as well as millions of the Pfizer vaccine, to be used in phase one.
ASX-listed healthcare giant CSL (CSL) would then begin manufacturing tens of millions of the AstraZeneca jab, which would service the majority of Australia.
The government had hoped to complete phase one of the vaccine rollout — which sees healthcare, aged-care and quarantine workers as well as the elderly and other vulnerable groups immunised — by late March.
But, that deadline was pushed back to early April and now the government won’t say when phase 1a and phase 1b will be completed.
“We thought we would get 3.8 million AstraZeneca doses and for issues with sovereign vaccine issues in Europe, we’ve only had 700-odd thousand AstraZeneca vaccines, which we’ve deployed as soon as they’ve been tested,” the Health Secretary said.
“It will be impossible to predict exactly when we will hit 4 million until we know what the CSL production capability will be like, what the further international supplies will be like,” he added.
The health chief also confirmed the delays would affect the wider rollout of the vaccine to the rest of Australia’s population.
“We may or may not get everyone to have two doses by the end of October,” Brendan Murphy said.
“I don’t think it’s that important, the ultimate objective is still on track,” he added.
Commenting on the delay, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the October deadline being missed is “not news”.
“We were clear a month ago that the October deadline would not include the second dose. The [health] minister said that a month ago and that’s what Professor Murphy said yesterday,” he said.
“That is not news,” the PM added.