Scott Morrison urged by health sector to speed up COVID vaccine rollout

Doubts every Australian will be fully vaccinated by the end of October have sparked major concerns among health experts.

Doubts every Australian will be fully vaccinated by the end of October have sparked major concerns among health experts and business groups urging the federal government to get on with the rollout.

There are more than 1.3 million doses of vaccine in the country, but only about 125,000 in the arms of Australians so far, as health officials on Thursday conceded they “don’t know” if every person will get both jabs on schedule.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison gives the thumbs up after receiving a COVID-19 vaccination on February 21. Picture: Mark Evans / Getty Images

Australia’s ranks just 83rd in the world for its vaccine rollout, and while the government has argued it’s “not a race,” businesses hurt by ongoing ­restrictions want the program dramatically ramped up.

Restaurant & Catering Association chief executive Wes Lambert said hospitality operators were borrowing money under the assumption Australia would be fully vaccinated in 2021 so business could resume as normal: “RCA is calling on the federal government to ­improve the rollout process of the vaccine as we are just weeks away from the end of JobKeeper and heading into the … low season for hospitality.” Council of Small Business Organisations Australia head Peter Strong said the government needed to “do everything it can to pull out all the stops” to be done by October.

“The sooner we get it out there the sooner the economy gets back into full recovery,” Mr Strong said.

Health Department Secretary Professor Brendan Murphy has confirmed although all first vaccine doses would be ­delivered by October, the 12-week gap required between ­AstraZeneca jabs, which most of the country will receive, meant some may have to wait longer for the second dose.

“The great majority of ­people have had two vaccines by (October) and everyone will have had one, and it’s a semantic difference where there are a small proportion who have to come back a little bit later for their second dose,” he told a parliamentary committee on Thursday.

It is not yet known if people who only had one dose of the vaccine by October would be able to travel internationally.

Scott Morrison speaks to fellow recipients of the COVID-19 vaccination in the observation area at Castle Hill Medical Centre on February 21. Picture: Mark Evans / Getty Images

Epidemiologist Professor Mary-Louise McLaws said it was “pretty obvious” the government needed to “scale up dramatically” to finish on time.

“You needed about 170,000 injections per day to be able to cover about 80 per cent of the community,” she said. Prof McLaws said in the first 18 days the UK delivered 830,000 jabs, Israel reached 1.4 million and the US is now giving on average two million a day.

Labor Senator Katy Gallagher, who chairs the COVID-19 Senate committee, said it was “dangerous” of the health department to suggest having only one jab by October was “nearly good enough”.

“Clearly, they’re walking away from the end of October, just like they’ve walked away from the four million vaccin­ated by the end of March,” she said. International supply chain issues have already pushed the four million goal to at least mid-April.

PM Scott Morrison said the vaccine rollout was “not a competition for the sake of people’s health.

“It’s not a race,” he said.

“You get it right. And that’s exactly what we’re doing and, where we are, our October deadline is the one we’re absolutely working to — there’s no change to that.”