Coronavirus Australia: Scott Morrison falls 3.4 million short of vaccine target

Four million Australians were expected to have a vaccine by the end of March. However, the government has fallen way short of the target.

The Morrison government has come nowhere near meeting its aim to vaccinate four million people by the end of March.

Just over 13 per cent of that target, or half a million COVID-19 vaccine doses, has been administered as of March 28.

Health authorities on Tuesday celebrated the record number of 55,950 vaccines put into arms around Australia in one day.

But this falls well short of the government’s target, spruiked by Prime Minister Scott Morrison in early January.

“We hope by the … end of March, I should say, to have reached some four million population,” Mr Morrison said.

“That is a target. That is what we are working to.”

Come January 25, the goalposts started to shift when issues around international vaccine shipments became apparent.

“The events of recent weeks, I think, will mean that four million position will be something that is going to be achieved in early April, as opposed to late March,” Mr Morrison said.

“That is the reality of dealing with international arrangements.”

Speaking in Adelaide on Wednesday, Mr Morrison said more than 650,000 vaccines had been delivered.

“I expect by next week we will be into the million,” he said.

“The target to get everybody with their first dose by the end of October, that is on track.”

Prime Minister Scott Morrison tours the AstraZeneca laboratories in Sydney. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Bianca De Marchi

However, the tables have now turned on the states and territories after new allocation figures revealed that less than two-thirds of the vaccines received have been administered.

Western Australia has administered 62 per cent of the vaccines allocated to it, leading the other states and territories.

South Australia lags furthest behind at just 35 per cent.

Queensland, parts of which are in a three-day lockdown, has been forced to defend its vaccine rollout.

At least five people who attended a hen’s party at Byron Bay have tested positive for the UK strain after an unvaccinated nurse and her sister contracted COVID-19 from a patient.

Emergency Management Minister David Littleproud on Wednesday lashed his Queensland state counterparts, saying they “need to pull their finger out”.

“The fact is they have left these in the rack when they could have put these things in people’s arm,” Mr Littleproud told Today.

“If we need to surge resources in to support them we have said that from the start.

“We are going to help the states. But they have to admit they have a problem because they have done three-fifths of bugger all, and they are holding this nation back.”

But Mr Morrison said he was not making “any criticism” of the states.

“It’s a big job, we are all doing it,” he said.

Melbourne ICU nurse Adrienne Pendrey receives her second Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Andrew Henshaw

But Labor leader Anthony Albanese said the government had failed to reach their target of four million people.

“Scott Morrison is always strong on announcement and always weak on delivery,” Mr Albanese told ABC AM.

“He was very confident and then the rhetoric changed halfway through March, whereby we were no longer in a hurry to achieve a rollout of the vaccine.”

Australian Medical Association vice-president Chris Moy said the issue was whether states rolled the vaccines out fast enough and whether they prioritised the staff that were dealing with COVID-positive patients.

Dr Moy told the ABC that CSL was “quite good” at making the vaccine but had problems getting them “into the bottles” and getting it out to GPs.

Originally published as Coronavirus Australia: Scott Morrison falls 3.4 million short of vaccine target