Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

I want to thank the member for Sturt. Like all members of this chamber, he's focused on making sure that the health of Australians is protected. As we look at a world with over two million lives lost this year, officially—potentially as high as five million, if you take the World Health Organization's assessment—and compare that with no lives lost to COVID in Australia from anybody who has caught COVID in Australia, that perspective, I think, puts the national public health achievement into a global context.

Today, of course, as was mentioned before question time, the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation has updated its advice with regard to the access to vaccines in Australia. It has recommended that the AstraZeneca vaccine be made available to those who are 60 and over and that the Pfizer vaccine is the preferred vaccine for those who are under 60. They've done that on the basis of continuously assessing the medical advice. Indeed, I requested them to do that again last Thursday but we know that, in particular, they've been engaged in continuous assessment. So out of an abundance of caution, as I mentioned earlier, they have made those recommendations.

There are four responses, which the government has taken. Firstly, we will accept that advice. Pfizer will now be the preferred vaccine for under-60s and AstraZeneca for over-60s. Secondly, we will move to open access to Pfizer for the 40- to 59-year-olds, so the 50 to 59s are being added to that group. Then we'll move to increase access to that as the third item. That means, over the course of July, that up to 1,300 general practices and 136 Commonwealth clinics will be given access to Pfizer. That should begin on about 5 July, going forwards over that week, for up to 500 practices, up to a further 500 practices over the week of 12 July and up to a further 300 practices over the week of 19 July.

In addition, supply for Pfizer will be increasing, and I think that's a very important element. What we're expecting is to go from, this month, approximately 1.7 million doses to 2.8 million over July, with the remaining 32.6 million doses to be delivered during the course of the year. All of these things are about ensuring that the rollout, which has seen over 6.2 million doses—over five million Australians and over 25.5 per cent of eligible Australians received that vaccine rollout. It's about keeping Australians safe and about following that medical advice, and by following that medical advice we have kept Australians safe and saved lives through this pandemic.

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