NSW Premier revises her Covid-19 vaccination target yet again

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has issued a revised target for Sydney’s vaccination coverage by calling on residents to reach six million inoculations by the end of the month.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian on Tuesday. Picture: Getty Images

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has issued a revised target for Sydney’s vaccination coverage by calling on residents to reach six million inoculations by the end of the month, a softening of her earlier push to see significant upsurges in weekly immunisations over the coming weeks.

Adjusting her messaging for the third time in as many days, Ms Berejiklian said achieving six million doses would provide a pathway for the state to reduce its present restrictions – although this would also depend on case numbers dropping to manageable levels.

NSW recorded 199 fresh cases of the virus in the 24 hours to 8pm on Monday, with 82 cases known to be infectious in the community and a further 47 cases under investigation for their isolation status. Case numbers have remained at these levels for weeks.

Ms Berejiklian began pushing an aggressive vaccination message over the weekend combined with clear and optimistic outlooks to pull the state out of lockdown – due to end on August 28 – if inoculation targets are achieved. Since then she has recalibrated this message several times.

On Sunday, Ms Berejiklian said she was hoping to see a surge in weekly vaccinations rates – which are sitting at 500,000 doses – to achieve close to 70 per cent coverage this month.

“We want to do more, we want to go faster. Once you get to 50 per cent vaccination, 60 per cent, 70 per cent, that triggers more freedoms. We can turn this around in four weeks,” she said.

By Monday she had qualified this stance to include the number of infections in the community as a second critical metric for whether lockdowns would ease.

On Tuesday, she appeared to back away from earlier hopes of an upsurge in vaccinations, settling on a target of two million jabs over the coming weeks, or 500,000 inoculations per week, which remains the current pace.

“I don’t want to raise expectations because we have a lot of hard work to do. On the current rate that we’re doing, we should be able to get there with the jabs,” Ms Berejiklian said.

“It’s roughly half the population with at least one or two doses. That gives us additional options as to what life looks like beyond August.”

Accessing the vaccine remains challenging in some areas due to demand pressures, even though the state remains amply supplied with AstraZeneca.

In the Blue Mountains, where case numbers are low, the wait-time for a dose of AstraZeneca is six weeks with local GPs; it is twelve weeks for Pfizer.

Elsewhere, venues affiliated with ClubsNSW have begun a conversion into vaccine hubs, with Bankstown Sports Club understood to have administered 500 doses of AstraZeneca to its community already.

Two others community ­venues are assisting with similar vaccination efforts, with a fourth to begin imminently.