‘Remarkable’: Australia’s major vax milestone as rollout chief answers booster fears

Australia has finally hit a major vaccine milestone amid fresh questions about the planning of the nation’s jab rollout.

Australia will on Thursday mark off a major milestone in the fight against Covid-19, with more than 90 per cent of people aged 16 plus now fully vaccinated.

After suffering a slow start to the rollout, the vaccinations picked up speed in the later half of the year thanks in part to the Delta outbreaks across the nation’s east coast.

But figures have slowed since Australia hit 80 per cent nationally in November.

Speaking with Sky News, vaccine rollout chief Lieutenant General John Frewen said Australians had responded “remarkably” to the call to get vaccinated.

“We're going to hit 90 per cent fully vaccinated across the nation, so Australians have responded remarkably to this,” he said.

The emergence of the Omicron variant has launched fresh questions about the effectiveness of the vaccine rollout after a decision to bring forward booster shots to five months led to a rush of people attempting to get their third jab.

The vaccine rollout has shifted gear to focus on booster doses. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Geraghty

The surge has caught GPs and pharmacies off guard, but General Frewen insisted there was no shortage of booster supply.

“We've now delivered over a million booster shots over the last week or so,” he told Sky News.

“Supply isn’t the issue. We’ve got many thousands of distribution points across the country and we’re working really hard with particularly those GPS and pharmacists who are carrying a load on this to get the supply to them as they need it.

“We're also working to move vaccines between various clinics and the like.”

He said there was more than a million doses of Pfizer and Moderna in pharmacies alone, but he understood some shopfronts might experience higher demand than others.

“It's a huge logistic challenge but supply is there. We’ve just got to make sure it gets to the right places.”

Originally published as ‘Remarkable’: Australia’s major vax milestone as rollout chief answers booster fears