‘Two weeks’: New deadline for vax rollout
HEALTH Minister Greg Hunt has promised five million booster doses will be delivered across Australia over two weeks.
Mr Hunt said Australia had passed the delivery of 2.25 million Covid vaccine booster shots to providers. He said they expected to be 700,000 doses ahead of schedule by the new year and would be ramping up deliveries for two weeks.
“Between now and the 15th of January, we’ll be delivering over five million vaccines, significantly increasing the numbers that are available.”
Mr Hunt said that meant nine million booster doses would have become available by that deadline to Australians.
“And that’s on top of the twoand-a-quarter million that have already been delivered.
“Please come forward if you haven’t had your booster yet and you are eligible, there is every opportunity to be boosted.”
Mr Hunt said there were far stronger numbers of people getting their jab than they had anticipated for Wednesday.
“There were 149,000 vaccinations yesterday across Australia coming off the Christmas long weekend and 112,500 of those approximately were boosters.”
He said that pharmacies had given out 60,000 of those booster shots in the 24-hour period, which was a record day for them. “Pharmacies alone double the state clinics,” he said.
“After the New Year we’re really encouraging the states to step up and reach the heights of their vaccination program which is up to five times higher than they were yesterday.”
The delivery increase comes after the nation’s vaccine advisory body reduced the interval between the second and third dose to four months.