Coronavirus: Australia’s Covid-19 Freedom Day revealed

New data has revealed when Australia’s Freedom Day will be, when we could achieve herd immunity to allow us to travel and avoid lockdowns.

Exclusive: Melbourne Cup Day will be the beginning of Australia’s march towards Covid-19 Freedom Day – the date we could achieve herd immunity, allowing us to regain the ability to drink in pubs, travel and avoid lockdowns.

A new data assessment has shown by November 2 there will be enough vaccines in the country to protect 80 per cent of the eligible population.

Data analyst Kenneth Tsang, who founded the COVID-19 Near Me website that helps people track nearby exposure sites, crunched the numbers provided in the federal government’s vaccine supply Horizons document to set this date.

Melbourne Cup Day 2021 will signify the start of Australia’s march towards Freedom Day. Picture: Quinn Rooney/Getty Images

More than half of those over the age of 60 have had at least one jab, as have 70 per cent of those over 70 years.

There are about 15 million Australians between 16 and 59 years old who need the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine and each person needs two doses.

This means in order for 80 per cent of this population (12 million people) to be fully vaccinated we will need 24 million doses, he said.

“Accounting for the 4 million doses already administered to this age group, 20 million doses are required to vaccinate 80 per cent of the 16-59 population,” he said.

“From the Horizons document, we can estimate that 20 million doses will arrive the week commencing 1st November 2021.”

The model was based on vaccine supply only, so it didn’t consider the time taken for batch testing, distribution and actual administration of the vaccine, he warned.

There is a recommended three-week gap between doses of the Pfizer jab and 28 days gap between doses of Moderna’s shot.

Data analyst Kenneth Tsang who founded the COVID-19 Near Me website that helps people track exposure sites near them. Picture: Tim Hunter.

“It’ll be safe to say that once the supply arrives in Australia, it’ll take a few weeks for those doses to get to clinics and get administered as first and second doses,” he said.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has set 80 per cent vaccine coverage as the benchmark for a return to Covid normal.

“You need between 75 to 80 per cent of the population to be vaccinated before you can start having conversations about what Covid normal looks like – that is the target,” she said.

University NSW epidemiologist and World Health Organisation adviser Professor Mary-Louise McLaws agrees “we should target minimum 67 per cent total pop (population), preferably 80 per cent (for Delta)” she said.

Releasing the national road map to get us out of Covid-19 last week, Prime Minister Scott Morrison tasked the Doherty Institute with coming up with a “scientific number” that would lay out what proportion of the population had to be vaccinated before we could start avoiding lockdowns and reopening our borders.

This official number is expected within the next month.

Graphs prepared by University Melbourne physicist Dr Christopher Billington who has been tracking vaccine performance shows we are running at a seven day average of 127,400 jabs per day.

This is up from just over 100,000 doses a day a few weeks ago and 50,000 doses a day in early May.

Dr Billington said to get 80 per cent of the population vaccinated we will need to lift our performance to 250,000-300,000 doses a day.

If this is achieved, he predicts 80 per cent of the population could be vaccinated by Christmas and certainly by the end of January 2022.

Royal Australian College of General Practitioners president Dr Karen Price said the task of vaccination was not just about vaccine supply or even sticking a needle in someone’s arm.

“The task of vaccination is to get that person to a point where they fully understand the risks and benefits, they fully are able to give a positive informed consent about it, and then they present,” she said.

“The actual task of sticking the needle in the arm is not the hard part. The hard part is getting them in the queue.”

This is why the Immunisation Coalition, medical groups and infectious diseases experts are calling on the government to rollout an entertaining and engaging advertising campaign to encourage people to get the jab.