Jab deliveries to rise despite Italy’s ban

Health Minister Greg Hunt says Australia will soon be delivering more than 500,000 COVID vaccinations.

Julia Gillard receives her jab. Picture: Andrew Henshaw

Health Minister Greg Hunt says Australia will soon be delivering more than 500,000 COVID vaccinations a week, despite the Morrison government being behind in its inoculation targets.

On Sunday, Mr Hunt announced the federal government would enlist more than 4500 GP clinics to administer COVID jabs to ramp up its national vaccine rollout.

More than 81,000 Australians have been vaccinated in the first fortnight of the rollout, including more than 23,000 aged-care residents. The government has fallen well behind its initial target to vaccine 80,000 people a week.

It is also aiming to have four million Australians vaccinated with their first dose by early April.

“We will soon be delivering well over 500,000 vaccinations a week, while making sure we have the contingency for second vaccinations, and that will continue to grow and that is a wonderful outcome for Australians,” said Mr Hunt, who on Sunday was vaccinated alongside Julia Gillard.

He said some states and territories would bring forward their commencement of the phase 1b stage, which includes elderly Australians and people with underlying health conditions.

Doctors will be brought in for phrase 1b of the rollout, which will begin on March 22.

More than 1200 GPs will administer vaccines in the first week of the phase, with a scale up to more than 4500 in one month. Until now, vaccines have been administered only at hospitals and aged-care centres.

Mr Hunt also said the Morrison government was confident in the continuity of COVID vaccine supplies, despite France indicating it could follow Italy in blocking vaccine shipments to Australia.

At the weekend, France threatened to join Italy in banning exports of the AstraZeneca jabs, as the UK and Germany warned the EU not to restrict the international flow of vaccines.

Mr Hunt said AstraZeneca’s commitment to Australia was unchanged and domestic and international supplies of the vaccine would continue. “We are still expecting continued supplies, we are continuing to receive supplies, and so we are actually in a very strong position already,” he said.

“I think you will find, very shortly, that the continuity of supplies doesn’t just continue but is slightly better than we hoped.”

Mr Hunt ruled out foreshadowing individual shipments but said he was “very happy” with conversations he had with his counterpart in the European Commission and the global head of AstraZeneca at the weekend.

Trade Minister Dan Tehan has also spoken to his counterpart at the European Commission and the World Trade Organisation.

A Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesman said the government had expressed its disappointment with the EU’s decision to allow Italy to block the export of 250,000 AstraZeneca doses to Australia. “This refusal is contrary to statements the EU has made regarding the operation of their transparency mechanism.

“We expect AstraZeneca to be allowed to honour its contract with Australia.”