Fiona Martin (Reid, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health and Ageing. Can the minister please update the House on Australia's progress in the fight against COVID-19 and how the commencement of phase 1b of the vaccine rollout will scale out and help protect Australian lives and livelihoods against the continuing pandemic?

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

I want to thank the member for Reid, particularly with her focus on mental health, at a time that is seeing extraordinary challenges for Australians. The last year has been a challenge for the world and it's been a challenge for Australians, and of course the last weekend in New South Wales has seen more hardships visited upon the public. But one important point of light in the midst of all of this is that today is a further day of zero cases of community transmission of COVID-19. That makes 50 days, or 62 per cent of days this calendar year, with no community transmission across Australia. That means that no lives have been lost in Australia to COVID-19 in 2021. Yet we know that, at the same time, the pandemic continues. Sadly, numbers have begun to increase again around the world, with over 399,000 cases yesterday and over 6,000 lives lost.

Against that background, with the vaccination program we now see over 280,000 vaccinations completed, including over 58,000 vaccinations in aged care; 609 aged-care facilities around the country have first doses completed and 89 facilities around the country have second doses completed. Significantly, what we see today is that phase1b, the rollout to over a thousand general practices, continues and expands. Around the country, Australians are being vaccinated in their general practices and this number will grow from over a thousand to over 4,000 before the end of April.

I had the privilege of joining the National Health Co-op in Macquarie today. Lyn was vaccinated by her doctor, Joe. We saw the pride of a doctor in being able to administer the vaccine and the pride in the practice of being able to coordinate it—they were booking out over five weeks, which was a wonderful thing. There is the change, the transformation—that sense of hope and protection—that is occurring right across Australia.

Now, as the vaccines come in and as supply is available, we're seeing exactly as we said, that on 22 March we would commence this phase of the vaccine program. We also saw the TGA approval over the course of the weekend for CSL to manufacture and produce in Australia: Australia's sovereign vaccine-manufacturing capability. Ultimately, this is about saving lives and protecting lives. (Time expired)