Australian government secures 1 million extra Covid-19 Pfizer doses
One million extra doses of the Covid-19 Pfizer vaccine are on the way to Australia. Here’s how to get your hands on them.
One million extra doses of the Covid-19 Pfizer vaccine will arrive in Australia on Sunday night from Poland after the commonwealth secured a deal with the pharmaceutical giant and Polish government.
The doses, all from the Pfizer plant in Belgium, left in a plane from Warsaw on Saturday night and will be rolled out through Sydney’s vaccination hubs once they arrive.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the doses would be targeted towards the NSW capital as it’s Covid-19 outbreak worsens.
It followed the state’s “most concerning day” as 466 local coronavirus cases were recorded in NSW on Saturday, along with four more deaths.
About 530,000 of the doses would be prioritised for express delivery to the 12 city local government areas. The rest will be allocated to the other states and territories on a per capita basis.
Those NSW council areas are Bayside, Blacktown, Burwood, Campbelltown, Canterbury-Bankstown, Cumberland, Fairfield, Georges River, Liverpool, Parramatta and Strathfield.
Penrith is also included for the following suburbs – Caddens, Claremont Meadows, Colyton, Erskine Park, Kemps Creek, Kingswood, Mount Vernon, North St Marys, Orchard Hills, Oxley Park, St Clair and St Marys.
“There’s more than a million doses of hope on its way,” Mr Morrison told reporters on Sunday.
“These 1 million doses of hope, which will give people right across the country, particularly in NSW, where they are fighting this Delta strain in the most significant battle we have had in this country during the course of the Covid-19 pandemic up until now.
“A key factor in being able to secure these doses from our Polish friends has been that we have had a significant outbreak in our largest city.”
Australians aged between 20 and 39 would be targeted in the rollout of the extra Pfizer doses as the Delta variant continues to infect a large majority of the country’s younger population.
“This will greatly assist, particularly the effort in NSW, to assist them as they go into this harder lockdown, and those lockdown measures must be adhered to,” Mr Morrison said.
Health Minister Greg Hunt said the extra doses would bring the country’s national vaccine rollout forward.
“Much of the burden of the fourth quarter as being brought forward to the third quarter,” he said.
“We are vaccinating more people than we had planned and anticipated was possible at this time and that is a tribute to both the supply, logistics and above all else, the Australian people that are coming forward and those doing the vaccinations.”
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the doses were on a plane that left Warsaw on Saturday and then Dubai on Sunday morning, and would arrive in the country late on Sunday evening.
While addressing the media following 415 new local cases of Covid-19 on Sunday, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said she was “thankful” to the commonwealth for securing the extra doses.
While Cumberland City Council Mayor Steve Christou – one of the LGA’s of concern in Sydney – said he had been calling for more vaccines “for months”.
“This new roll out of vaccines in western Sydney will help us to move out of lockdown faster and get on the road to recovery,” he said.
“Thank you for hearing our pleas and sourcing additional vaccines that are so desperately needed.”
About 20.45 per cent of Australia’s population is fully vaccinated and 26.54 per cent of the eligible population in NSW is fully inoculated.
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