Pfizer comes to party with a million doses

NEW Pfizer vaccine supplies will help Australia’s doses rise to a million a week from July 19, Scott Morrison says.

The Prime Minister did a media blitz after the federal government secured an additional 300,000 Covid-19 vaccinations for Greater Sydney. This includes 150,000 extra AstraZeneca and 150,000 extra Pfizer doses from July 19.

“We have been working with Pfizer now for quite some period of time to bring forward our supplies,” Mr Morrison told the Today show on Friday.

Australia’s vaccination rate remains the lowest in the OECD, with about 8 per cent of the population fully vaccinated.

In a press conference on Friday, Chief Minister Michael Gunner said the NT continued to have the highest vaccination rates in the nation.

“More than 17 per cent of us are fully vaccinated, it’s probably close to 18 per cent now which is a pretty sensational figure,” he said.

“In remote areas we have 32 per cent Territorians vaccinated and 14 per cent fully vaccinated. Bloody legends.”

In June, Aussies received 1.7 million jabs. Mr Morrison says this will rise to 2.8 million in July and 4.5 million in August. “We’ve got 1300 extra GPs coming on line this month to deliver the Pfizer vaccine,” he said. “We are really hitting our marks now.”

This announcement comes two weeks into Sydney’s lockdown. On Wednesday, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian announced the lockdown would be extended to July 17.

NSW has 406 active cases of Covid-19.

On the Today show, Mr Morrison stressed that Pfizer had not been at fault for the delayed delivery of Australians’ preferred vaccine brand.

“Pfizer’s supply to us, all the way through, what they’ve said they will deliver, they have delivered,” he said.

Meanwhile, in Queensland, dwindling supplies of Pfizer remain an issue.

Speaking in Gladstone on Friday, Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese was critical of the Morrison government’s “spin” on the extra vaccines.

“Let’s be clear here: these are very small increases in supply of the vaccine,” he said.

Mr Albanese said at the Gladstone GP Super Clinic, there were only eight doses of Pfizer left. “We need to do much better. And we need to do much better in terms of regional communities,” he said.