NSW to get 80,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines over next 10 days

Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt says NSW will get 80,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines in the next 10 days as the state government grows increasingly frustrated about being left in the dark.

In a veiled swipe at the federal government, Premier Gladys Berejiklian said on Monday morning that NSW needed more information about dosage numbers in order to plan for the rollout.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian and Health Minister Brad Hazzard look on as a NSW Health worker receives his COVID-19 vaccination at the Westmead Hospital.Credit: Getty

“This is the issue: we would like to know as soon as possible how many doses NSW is receiving,” Ms Berejiklian said. “Our teams are ready and willing to step up and increase our capacity, but we’ll just need to know exactly how many doses we’re getting beyond week four.”

After her public comments, Mr Hunt’s office said in a statement that he had a “constructive” conversation with Ms Berejiklian and had confirmed to her that NSW would get 80,000 doses of the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines in the next 10 days, subject to the state’s “confirmation of ability to distribute”.

Of those, 14,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine will be sent to NSW in the next 24 hours, Mr Hunt’s office confirmed, but it did not identify how many doses would be the AstraZeneca version.

The Oxford University-AstraZeneca vaccine will be the one most NSW residents receive once it is rolled out en masse.

Ms Berejiklian said NSW had vaccinated 10,339 quarantine workers in the first week of the Pfizer rollout, but her government was unable to plan for the subsequent rollout of AstraZeneca, after 300,000 doses arrived in Australia on Sunday.

The Premier pressed the need for greater information, pointing to the complex logistical exercise involved in safely storing, refrigerating and distributing the vaccine, as well as ensuring staffing levels to administer jabs.

“Obviously there could be supply issues ... we’re just asking [the federal government] to make sure that [we are told] as soon as they know how many doses each state is receiving and when, so we can plan ahead,” Ms Berejiklian said.

A spokesman for Mr Hunt said Pfizer “is shortly expected to provide guidance on arrival doses globally beyond week four”. “Once that has been received it will be immediately shared with the states,” the spokesman said.

NSW’s frustration with the federal government has been growing, with Ms Berejiklian and Health Minister Brad Hazzard voicing concerns that they had not been receiving adequate information.

The spokesman for Mr Hunt said the federal government “has been in constant discussions with the states and territories on the allocation of COVID-19 vaccines”.

“We have already announced that 200,000 doses of AstraZeneca would be provided to the states before next Monday. They have also been provided with the rollout schedule for aged care facilities.”

Asked to respond to reported vaccine delays in aged care facilities, in which 8110 residents had been vaccinated nationwide, Mr Hazzard said NSW was ready to scale up if required.

“All I’m prepared to say at this stage is we would like detailed information on where they are intending to roll out the AstraZeneca vaccines, but also the Pfizer in the aged care facilities, so we can work with them to understand how we might be able to prop them up a bit,” Mr Hazzard said.

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