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

I thank the member for Higgins for her work and her support as a health leader across this nation. We know that around the world the pandemic continues. It was said at the dispatch box opposite that the pandemic is coming to an end. It's not. We are at 240 million cases around the world. We are at 4.9 million lives lost. The number of cases this year is almost double the number last year. At the same time, however, what is changing is how we live with the virus. One of the fundamental things is that, whilst we relied last year on our borders and on testing, tracing and distancing, the vaccination program is allowing us to change that in Australia. Already we are at 32.6 million doses. In the last week alone, in the last seven days, over 1.9 million vaccinations were delivered in Australia. In the last 14 days there were over 3.8 million vaccinations and in the last 28 days over 7.8 million vaccinations.

These are Australians coming forward to protect themselves, their friends, their families—or just to do the right thing by the community. These Australians are leading to extraordinary outcomes. We see that 93 per cent of our over-50s have come forward for a first dose and an extraordinary 97 per cent of our over-70s, our most vulnerable demographic. Extraordinarily, 99.8 per cent of our aged-care workers have come forward for vaccinations. That is a testament to all involved, and we thank them and honour them. All this is about saving lives and protecting lives. Yes, there has been hardship here, as there has been in all nations of the world. But we know that the actions we've taken over the last two years and have now seen through the vaccination program have meant that Australia has had one of the three lowest rates of lives lost across the OECD, the 38 nations, this year and across the entire pandemic. That means we have saved over 30,000 lives, compared with the OECD average. That is 45,000 lives if we were to compare it with the United Kingdom or the United States. Each one of those is a life to be celebrated, a family that will be whole. Each one of those comes from the actions of Australians over the last two years—in particular, all those Australians who have come forward. And, as the Prime Minister said, we'll pass the 85 per cent first-dose mark and the 70 per cent second-dose mark in the coming days— (Time expired)

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