Frontline workers could get COVID vaccine within weeks

Australia has mapped out its COVID vaccine strategy. See which stage of the rollout you will qualify for.

Nursing home residents and hotel quarantine workers could be rolling up their sleeves to receive one of the first COVID-19 vaccinations in just six weeks.

Vaccinations will begin in mid to late February with most Australians to be jabbed in respiratory clinics in the second half of the year.

About 80,000 shots will initially be delivered each week, before the rollout ramps up as the year progresses and more vaccines are approved and produced.

Announcing the fast-tracked program yesterday, Scott Morrison said he hoped four million people would be vaccinated by the end of March. The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine would be the first approved, health experts said, with the AstraZeneca jab expected to follow shortly after.

Under the new rollout plan, Australia’s population will be split into five priority groups, with frontline workers and the vulnerable up first, before the general population and then children.

The free and voluntary jab will be administered across two doses, about a month apart.

The Prime Minister said the exact rollout timeline depended on the Therapeutic Goods Administration giving the vaccines final approval, as well as delivery of the doses being made overseas.

He dismissed claims by the federal opposition that the vaccine had been delayed, insisting the processes were moving “swiftly and safely”. “Doing that is critical to public confidence in the vaccine,” he said.

His announcement came just two days after Health Minister Greg Hunt revealed the jabs launch date would be brought forward from late to early March, amid widespread calls for the program to start as soon as possible.

Major vaccination hubs will be set up to administer the Pfizer-BioNTech jabs, with medical teams assembled to go into nursing homes to inject ­patients there.

The federal government has already bought 10 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine — enough for five million people — which has to be imported and stored at -70C.

Eventually, more than 1000 locations will be set up to inject people, including GP clinics and Indigenous health centres.

Federal health department secretary Brendan Murphy said the rollout would speed up once the AstraZeneca vaccine was approved as it would be made in Australia, guaranteeing the supply line.

“That will lead us to a rapid ramp-up within weeks of that initial start,” Professor Murphy said. Over the second quarter of 2021 “a significant portion” of the population would be vaccinated, he said.

Royal Melbourne Hospital Head of the Respiratory Services Associate Professor Louis Irving said he was “incredibly keen” to see frontline healthcare workers first.

“Healthcare workers have been seeing the sharp end of what COVID can do and, at the same time, we are all very much aware that the general population are having to make very significant sacrifices ... the vaccine is going to help alleviate a lot of that misery.”

People aged under 18 were likely to be the last vaccinated.

Mr Morrison warned the vaccine was not a “silver bullet” and would not mark the end of “COVID-safe practices”.

Opposition health spokesman Chris Bowen said the government had stalled, then caved to political pressure.

CENTRES TO BE SET UP AHEAD OF PFIZER JABS APPROVAL

Two dedicated vaccination centres will be set up in Melbourne in the coming weeks, ahead of an expected late January approval of the Pfizer vaccine candidate.

A further two sites – one around Geelong and another near the Mornington Peninsula – will also be established as part of a network of up to 50 hubs across the country.

Doctors, nurses, aged-care workers and people dealing with international travellers will begin receiving jabs at the sites in mid to late February, according to the federal government.

The initial 50 or so centres will only administer the Pfizer doses, with hundreds more sites being set up to inject ­people with the AstraZeneca vaccine when it is expected to be approved a few weeks later.

Eventually, people will be able to be vaccinated at one of more than 1000 locations nationwide, with a reminder sent to people between their first and second shots.

Federal health department secretary Brendan Murphy said the locations would be worked out by the state governments in consultation with the federal government.

Two dedicated vaccination centres will be set up in Melbourne in the coming weeks

“[The initial hubs] will deliver some vaccines to those frontline border workers, quarantine workers, frontline healthcare workers and become a distribution site for the outreach teams that will go into residential aged care and into disability care to deliver those vaccines to that initial priority population,” Professor Murphy said.

“We will expand our vaccination sites. In addition to those Pfizer hubs we will be expanding into general practice clinics, our existing Commonwealth GP respiratory clinics and a number of other state-run vaccination clinics that will be determined in partnership with the states and territories and obviously also Aboriginal-controlled health services.

“You will see potentially 1000 or more sites across the country that will be rolling out vaccine for the subsequent phases.” He said he expected a “very significant proportion of the population” would have been vaccinated by the end of the year.

Political leaders will also be among the first to receive the COVID-19 jab.

Scott Morrison confirmed his inoculation would be televised, as he expected for all state and territory leaders – something they had discussed at national cabinet.

“We’re not the priority but I think it’s important for a show of public confidence,” the Prime Minister said.

Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt said he had been in discussions with the federal opposition and expected Labor leader Anthony Albanese to receive his first dose at a similar time. “None of us wanted to be queue jumpers, but we also recognise the public confidence role,” Mr Hunt said.

Vaccine rollouts have started in a number of other countries.

Mr Morrison reiterated that while some high-profile figures being vaccinated would be important to build confidence, there were “more important” people laid out in the new vaccination plan.

Children will be the last group to receive a jab.

“We know children are at the lowest risk of getting COVID and transmitting COVID and the vaccines currently haven’t been properly tested in children,” Professor Murphy said.

More than 6 million Australians, including people aged over 70, Indigenous people over 55 and adults with underlying health conditions, will be in the second priority group.

Among them will also be police officers, Defence personnel and people working in meat processing – a sector that has been hard hit by outbreaks in Australia and overseas throughout the pandemic.

A further 6.5 million people make up the third tier.

Among them will be people over 40, all Indigenous adults and any remaining workers in high-risk industries. The second-last allotment will be for any adults, before children receive the last lot of jabs.

Professor Murphy said both doses and their administration would be free.

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