Mark Butler (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House of Representatives) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. The Commonwealth is receiving 1.4 million doses of COVID vaccine each week. How is it that the government is only putting 500,000 doses per week into people's arms, when they're receiving almost three times that number in supply?

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

I'm delighted to be able to respond to this question. In the last week what we have seen is as a record number of vaccinations, as the Prime Minister has said: 512,916 vaccinations. Two weeks ago it was 402,002. Last week it was 436,000. This week it was 512,000. So we distribute, and what we're seeing is that in the last week over 960,000 vaccines were distributed. What that will lead to is the ability of the states and GPs. We also had contingency. Contingency is for second doses. Where one dose is given, a second dose has to be given. Contingency is about provisioning for the second doses. That is actually how it operates. For every Pfizer dose, a second dose is provisioned. For every AstraZeneca dose, a significant proportion of doses are provisioned because we do know that, in the coming weeks, CSL will have line maintenance. So, at this point in time, we actually have 2.6 million in contingency to allow for AstraZeneca second doses, to allow for Pfizer second doses and to allow for the coming line maintenance which is being done by CSL with their AstraZeneca plant.

But, having said that, last week there were over 960,000 doses delivered. This week, we'll have a similar number of doses delivered. We have a 75 per cent utilisation rate. The Commonwealth aged-care rate is 100 per cent. We have, in the states and territories, approximately 75 per cent, as was announced just previously by Commodore Young. So we thank the states and territories. At this stage, they've delivered 1.27 million doses. The Commonwealth has delivered approximately 2.34 million doses, which includes our GPs, who have, in recent days, passed the two million mark—they have delivered 2,012,000 doses—and, in age and disability care, 326,000 doses.

So what we are seeing is that, on all of these fronts, people are stepping forward to be vaccinated, and we welcome that. Only prior to question time, Commodore Young, who is leading the Vaccine Operations Centre coordination, announced a further increase in the allocation to GPs, who are using more than 80 per cent of their doses, where we will go from 150 to 200 doses, or quadruple what it was recently; from 200 to 300 for medium-volume level, or triple what it was recently; or an increase for high-volume, high-throughput clinics from 400 to 600 doses a week. So, as those doses are being provided, as we expand to the over-50s, more Australians are being vaccinated every week.