Injection of pace in race to deliver Covid-19 vaccine doses

Chelsea Paton, 22, receives a dose of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine at Northbridge in Sydney’s north on Friday. Picture: Chris Pavlich

The Covid-19 vaccine “strollout” has become a trot and the race now has a big carrot to motivate all starters. At last, a plan, a target and hope.

In the seven days to Thursday, 1.15 million doses were administered across the country, with the total number of jabs up by 11 per cent to 12.01 million.

To achieve the 80 per cent of eligible population coverage the Doherty Institute recommended to national cabinet for moving into the final phases of reopening, we’ll need to fully vaccinate 16.5 million people, which is 33 million doses.

At the current vaccination rate, assuming all states jab at the national average and reach the targets, we can get there by the first week of December, and the 70 per cent initial hurdle by mid-November.

That’s a canter, but only if we can hurry up the lagging states, overcome “waiting for Pfizer” hesitancy, and rehabilitate the AstraZeneca shot, a miracle elixir in any other epoch.

The vaccine program is ramping up, with both supply and demand hitting highs this week, as the Morrison government scrambles to get its vaccine strategy and messaging on track.

As Greater Sydney’s lockdown enters its sixth week on Saturday, the number of doses administered in the last seven days in NSW was 446,000, a rise of 13 per cent. Before the Delta strain outbreak in Bondi last month the state was meandering at a weekly jab rate of below 200,000 doses.

The Melbourne outbreak at the end of May was the catalyst for a vaccine surge as state-run clinics lifted their workrate and younger people sought the Pfizer option.

In Victoria, half of all people aged in their 40s have received at least one dose and more than one-third are fully vaccinated. They’re not slackers on the vax.

Victoria’s Gen Xers are proportionally as fully vaccinated as their 70-something parents, who overwhelmingly have received locally produced AstraZeneca.

NSW is getting more Pfizer supply, as is the rest of the nation. Some three million vaccine doses are in fridges, the bulk of them AstraZeneca. In coming days, the Therapeutic Goods Administration is expected to grant approval to the Moderna vaccine, which is due to arrive in September.

Getting jabs into arms is the main game in Greater Sydney, especially lifting AstraZeneca usage and shifting attitudes to vaccination in culturally and linguistically diverse communities in Sydney’s hot spots. More supply to GPs and pharmacists joining the primary care program will improve coverage.

But there is a lack of progress in other jurisdictions, particularly in Western Australia and Queensland, who have provided a first dose to only 36 per cent of their eligible populations, the only states below the national average of 40 per cent.

The frontier states also hold the last two places among eight starters for rates of full vaccination, but they also have the largest land masses.

New weekly supply took a tumble below one million recently when CSL’s Melbourne plants were undergoing maintenance. But this week the Vaccine Operations Centre reported the TGA was conducting sample testing of more than one million doses of Pfizer, along with more than 1.6 million doses of AstraZeneca, prior to releasing the vaccines for distribution.

In its report Race to 80, the Grattan Institute said to achieve 80 per cent coverage of the entire population, including children, by the end of the year, governments must immediately expand state hubs and open new outlets, including at workplaces, schools, and community centres.

With only 18 per cent of eligible Australians fully vaccinated, the warm-up is over.