Anthony Albanese says COVID jabs cannot wait until late March

Anthony Albanese is ramping up his calls for an accelerated rollout of a coronavirus vaccine before March, as federal health officials say they hope to beat their current deadlines.

Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese. Picture: Tim Pascoe

Anthony Albanese is ramping up his calls for an accelerated rollout of a coronavirus vaccine before March, as federal health officials say they hope to beat their current deadlines.

The vaccination program and its administration is set to ­become a political sore point in the new year, with Scott ­Morrison saying he will not be pushed into bringing the dates for the jabs forward.

With more than four million Americans already vaccinated and other rollouts progressing around the world, the Opposition Leader criticised the government’s decision to make Australians wait.

“It makes no sense for the TGA to have recommended, as it is likely to do, in January, the approval of the Pfizer vaccine, but then for the rollout to not occur until March,” he said.

“What we know is that Australia is not at the front of the queue. We have never been at the front of the queue. And that’s why Labor argued very early on that we needed to get these deals signed, that we needed to get six deals signed, which is inter­national best practice.

“And the fact is that other ­nations got to the front of the queue way back in March of last year and Australia isn’t at that point yet.”

Mr Albanese said he was calling only for the vaccine rollout to begin in haste, and stressed that drug ­approvers were not being rushed by Labor.

“Can I make this position clear as well with regard to the government’s misinformation campaign? Labor supports the independence of the TGA,” he said.

“No one is calling for a short-cutting of that process. What we are saying, though, is that if you have confidence in the TGA ­processes, once it is approved it should be rolled out.”

Just over 1.3 per cent of the American population has been vaccinated since the Pfizer inoculation was approved by US authorities last month, and more than 900,000 people have now received jabs in Britain.

And in Israel, 12 per cent of the population has already been vaccinated.

Federal Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly said the TGA would need to test available stocks even after approvals were given, and there would be no ­delays in offering Australians free vaccinations.

“I can absolutely assure the public there will be no delays once that approval is done,” Professor Kelly said.

“After the approval, there needs to be stock available to be distributed, and there is some of that stock that needs to have further testing from the Therapeutic Goods ­Administration after the approval.

“We will be making more announcements about that process, and we’re just being cautious in terms of the late March time at this stage.

“We’re hoping that it may be shorter than that, but at this stage we are being upfront that it is our plan for the end of March to be a time when we start.”