Children aged 12-15 set to receive Pfizer jab

Scott Morrison will meet with the head of the national vaccine rollout to discuss giving Aussie school kids their jabs.

Children aged 12 and over will soon be able to receive a Covid-19 jab as planning kicks into gear to get school kids vaccinated.

Senior members of the government are meeting on Thursday with the head of the vaccine task force to discuss the next steps.

“Twelve to 15-year-olds in Australia will be vaccinated,” he said.

“Later today the national security committee of cabinet, which meets on Covid matters specifically, will be considering that plan.

“You can see that when we can get 1.8 million doses in just a week, then the task of ensuring that we can also in parallel vaccinate 1.2 million 12 to 15-year-olds and achieve the level that we would need to achieve there.

“That is a task that is certainly well within the capability of the vaccination program.”

An announcement on vaccines for school kids is due to be made in the coming days. Picture: Gary Ramage / NCA NewsWire

Australia’s technical advisory group on vaccinations is set to hand down its final advice “very soon”.

A further announcement, the prime minister flagged, would be made following Friday’s meeting of national cabinet.

The medical regulator approved the use of Pfizer for children aged 12-15 last month.

Children aged 12-15 who are Indigenous, have an underlying medical condition or are on the National Disability Insurance Scheme have been eligible for the vaccine since August 9.

However, many parents have reported difficulty in accessing a booking for the jab.

The expedited push to open up Covid-19 vaccinations to children follows a week of debate over the plan to reopen the nation.

The rising number of cases in children in NSW, Victoria and the ACT has become a thorn in the side of the national plan.

Under the plan agreed to by national cabinet, Australia will begin a phased reopening once 70 per cent of the eligible population is fully vaccinated.

The targets do not include children in the figure, raising concerns kids could be left behind as the country reopens.

Children aged 12-15 are set to receive the jab by the end of the year. Picture: Gaye Gerard / NCA NewsWire

ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr has a different approach. He will include 12 to 15-year-olds in Canberra’s vaccination total.

“They are eligible to be vaccinated and so they will be included in our 70 per cent and 80 per cent thresholds,” he told reporters on Thursday.

“As I've mentioned before, vaccination doesn't stop at 80 per cent. We need to keep on striving for more and more vaccination coverage. The ACT government’s goal is to see well above 80 per cent vaccination coverage for our population.”

Over in the west, Premier Mark McGowan said he had raised the idea with the prime minister, but he was not supportive.

“I think it's something that requires some serious further discussion,” Mr McGowan said.

“There's a headlong rush in Sydney to just open everything up and let it rip. That is not my view.

“We have a great thing going here. I don't want us to end up like them.”

But the prime minister insists the two objectives – vaccinating children and reopening the nation – are not mutually exclusive.

“That will be a very clear decision of my government that we will need to go ahead and vaccinate children.

“So these two objectives are not working against each other, I see them working completely together with each other.”

Australia’s vaccine rollout plan, Operation Covid Shield, indicates an in-school vaccination program could begin in the latter half of the year, but it is dependent on supply.

France, Italy and the Netherlands have all begun administering the vaccine to children over the age of 12.

More than 18 million vaccine doses have now been administered in Australia.

Mr Morrison added on the current trend he expects a third of Australians to be fully vaccinated by the end of the week.