Australia surpasses 2 million vaccinations but no data on second doses

Australians will not be told how many people have received a second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine until the states agree to it.

Australians will not be told how many people have received a second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine until the states at National Cabinet agree to release the information.

The nation finally achieved 2 million vaccinations but the number of people fully protected against the virus is not known because health officials will not publish the information without agreement from states and territories.

Pfizer vaccine doses must be taken three weeks apart. Picture: Luis ROBAYO / AFP

The only jurisdiction which reports doses separately is the Commonwealth, which has delivered 134,495 first doses in aged and disability care, and 76,275 second doses as of April 27.

Commodore Eric Young, who has been tasked with overseeing the vaccine rollout’s logistics, said public data was determined by National Cabinet.

“There as been an agreement at every stage as to what numbers are provided publicly, and the agreement at national Cabinet was to provide (total dose) numbers that you see on the website every single day,” he said.

Commodore Eric Young of the Vaccine Operations Centre says Australia still has capacity to ramp up its vaccine rollout. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Geraghty

Commodore Young said the rollout had still not hit capacity, and had improved significantly despite a slowdown caused by recalibrating the plan to prioritise Pfizer doses for people aged under 50.

“It took 47 days to get our first million doses administered and 19 days to get the second million doses administered,” he said.

“We are building capacity. We are getting a little better every day.”

UNSW Kirby Institute’s Bill Bowtell said the communication was “completely inadequate”.

“Public health cannot be secret health,” he said.

“There is no reason for any of this to be anywhere other than the public domain.”

A medical staff member prepares a dose of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. Picture: ARIS MESSINIS / AFP

Mr Bowtell said without data and targets, Australians would not be able to hold governments to account.

“You cannot have a strategy without targets, the more they try to obfuscate how much supply we have, the more that shows they doubt that supply,” he said.

“At the very least we should now how many people we can get vaccinated in May, June and July.”

States have not reported how many second Pfizer jabs they have administered since starting Phase 1A of the rollout.

GP clinics have so far delivered more than half of Australia’s total vaccines, but none of those are second doses as they are only giving out the AstraZeneca jab, which requires a 12-week gap before the second dose.