Pfizer fizzer: states reject Gladys Berejiklian plea for more vaccines

Scott Morrison and the national cabinet reject a desperate appeal from Gladys Berejiklian for more Pfizer vaccines for Sydney’s Covid-19 hot spots.

Scott Morrison in Canberra on Friday. Picture: Gary Ramage

Scott Morrison and the national cabinet have rejected a desperate appeal from Gladys Berejiklian for more Pfizer vaccines to be sent to Sydney’s Covid-19 hot spots, with NSW officials calling a ­“national emergency” after health restrictions failed to slow the spread of the virus across the city.

Second Pfizer doses will ­instead be spaced further apart – six weeks instead of three – to free up more supply after the NSW Premier was unable to convince her counterparts in other states and territories to redirect vaccines to younger essential workers in Sydney’s southwest and west.

With 136 new cases reported in NSW on Friday, a record for the current outbreak, officials have extended to 600,000 residents of Cumberland and Blacktown a prohibition on leaving those local government areas.

NSW chief health officer Kerry Chant conceded that the lockdown across the rest of the city, in place since late June but tightened at the weekend, was not having the impact that authorities had hoped.

Instead, Dr Chant said, urgent additional vaccination measures needed to be put in place.

“I have advised the government today that this is a national emergency and requires additional measures to reduce the case numbers,” she said.

“What we are seeing is that the actions we have taken to date have averted many cases. My sense of urgency is absolute ­urgency so I think we need to be seeing vaccines in arms on Saturday, Sunday, Monday.”

In particular, health officials are worried about essential workers who live in the worst-affected suburbs in Sydney’s southwest and west, aged between 20 and 49.

“Under 40s would not have been routinely eligible for vaccination, in terms of Pfizer,” Dr Chant said.

“And what I’ve recommended to government is we urgently do mass vaccination of those workers to stem the transmission risk. We know the vaccines do that ­because they reduce the risk. If you’re vaccinated, even one dose, it reduces your risk of onward transmission.”

But the request for more Pfizer vaccines was immediately rejected by several state leaders, including Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews and his West Australian counterpart, Mark McGowan.

“I understand their problem but we’re not prepared to give our Pfizer over,” Mr McGowan said. “We need to get people vaccinated just like every other state does.”

He described restrictions in NSW as “half-baked”.

Mr Andrews said: “It’s not my job to get the pubs open in NSW.

“So I’m not going to have Victorian vaccine go to NSW so that they can be open, while we’re closed. That doesn’t make any sense to me.”

Victoria, which is in its fifth lockdown, recorded 14 new Covid-19 cases in Friday.

Despite the strict restrictions on Sydneysiders, Mr Andrews ­demanded “a ring of steel around Sydney”. “If there is a national emergency – and I’m not doubting that for a moment in Sydney – then it is a national responsibility that Sydneysiders are locked into Sydney,” he said.

Speaking after a meeting of ­national cabinet, Mr Morrison said the commonwealth was not going to “disrupt the vaccination program around the rest of the country”.

“That vaccination program is going … and we want that to continue,” the Prime Minister said.

“The delta strain of the virus is obviously very fast transmitting and we need all the other states and territories to be continuing to get up to the mark.”

Mr Morrison rejected Mr Andrews’ call for a “ring of steel” around Sydney, and defended the harshness of Ms Berejiklian’s lockdown.

“There’s nothing light about the lockdown in Sydney, I can assure you. My family are in it,” he said. “The only view that matters on this is the view of the NSW Premier, because they are responsible for how they manage the lockdown in NSW.”

Ms Berejiklian has rejected several offers so far to allow the Australian Defence Force to provide added support to NSW Police and NSW Health in dealing with the outbreak.

Mr Morrison said the ADF could help with logistic issues and he had considered Covid-19 as a “national emergency” since early last year. “I’ve been treating COVID-19 as a national emergency for the last almost two years,” he said. “And, that hasn’t changed in that entirety of the time we’ve been managing this pandemic. Lives and livelihoods have been at stake right across the country this entire period.”

NSW will now space out appointments for the Pfizer vaccine to allow for six weeks between doses in an effort to make more vaccine available for first doses.

The strategy follows a similar approach in the UK that prioritised wider first-dose vaccine coverage, with British studies indicating a longer dosing interval might enhance antibody response.

Amid ongoing uncertainty caused by Sydney’s lockdown, the NSW education department announced that HSC written exams would be delayed by a week and begin on October 19.

The Australian Medical Association called on the Australian Technical Advisory Group on ­Immunisation to review its advice on the AstraZeneca vaccine in ­response to the outbreak of the delta variant.

“In this outbreak situation, ATAGI must consider providing the community with much clearer and firmer advice on the benefits of the AstraZeneca vaccine that is used in many countries around the world and approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration for anyone 18 years and over,” said AMA president Omar ­Khorshid.

The nation’s vaccine expert panel has stood by its recommendation that Australians under 60 get Pfizer over AstraZeneca, as Mr Morrison continues to lobby it to change its advice to open up access and support for AstraZeneca.