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NSW is just days away from reaching a major vaccination milestone, with 70 per cent of eligible adults having received a first dose, premier Gladys Berejiklian has said. Once this 70 per cent target is reached, the state will be able to project the date when the state could reach the level of double doses required to ease lockdowns, in mid-to-late October.
Berejiklian has previously said that, at 70 per cent coverage, lockdown settings will only be eased for fully vaccinated people. However, limited supplies of the Pfizer vaccine are preventing many younger NSW residents from accessing a first dose appointment before late October or November, which could bar many people from certain freedoms until December or even January 2022. All Australians aged 16 or over became eligible for a vaccine from August 30, however, the limited stocks of the Pfizer vaccine are not due to be replenished until the beginning of October, when six million doses will be imported to bolster the national stockpile. Currently, NSW is receiving 127,530 doses of Pfizer a week, with the majority of this supply being reserved for essential workers, people based in hotspot LGAs and vulnerable First Nations communities in far western NSW.
This supply bottleneck is once again highlighting the bungled messaging that has turned many Australians off getting the AstraZeneca vaccine. The government’s independent advisory board on immunisation, ATAGI, initially recommended that Pfizer be the preferred vaccine for people aged under 60, because of the extremely rare side effect of deep vein blood clots and critically low platelet levels. However, the federal government had failed to acquire enough Pfizer to offer widespread access when this advice was published, while there have been abundant supplies of AstraZeneca, which is manufactured in Australia. Despite ATAGI adjusting its recommendations on June 29 to grant access to AstraZeneca for all Australians over the age of 16 after consultation with their GP, many younger people have elected to wait for a Pfizer jab. The inflated warnings about side effects have also discouraged older Australians, for whom the AstraZeneca is considered safe, from receiving the jab, as they perceive the Pfizer vaccine as more premium.
The prime minister infamously dismissed concerns about the Pfizer supply saying the nation’s vaccine rollout was “not a race”. However, with the arrival of the highly transmissible Delta strain in mid-June, failures in the vaccine rollout have loomed large. NSW health minister Brad Hazzard said he was frustrated by the limited supply of Pifzer given to NSW by the federal government. He also called on younger Australians to book an AstraZeneca jab, saying people who are choosing to wait for Pfizer are “self-indulgent and selfish in the extreme”, adding, “Don’t be so selfish or self-entitled as to think you’re different from the rest of us. You’re not. Go and get vaccinated and give the entire community a fair go, particularly front-line medical staff.”
Berejiklian reasserted her comments from the press briefing on August 30, that restrictions will only be eased for fully vaccinated people once the 70 per cent target is reached, suggesting that this policy will incentivise more people to get the AstraZeneca jab in the near term. “I’m having this conversation now because our citizens are entitled to have direct and transparent advice as I receive it so we can start thinking about Covid in a different way,” she said, adding, “Nobody of a certain age should have any hesitancy with the AstraZeneca. And it’s really important to know that when we open up, those that are unvaccinated won’t be allowed to do other things because they will be exposed. That is why at 70 per cent double-dose freedoms will extend to people that are fully vaccinated. We cannot afford to have the unvaccinated exposed to venues and we can’t afford to have the unvaccinated susceptible to disease.”
The Moderna vaccine, which requires an interval of 28 days between doses, was approved for use in Australia in mid-August and the first shipment of one million doses is due to arrive in the country in late September. This will offer Australians another vaccine option that should help those unable or unwilling to get the AstraZeneca vaccine to access a jab.