Understand Australia
The rollout of Covid-19 vaccination getting controversial
The commonwealth health department has vaccinated only half of Australia’s aged and disability care residents despite initially saying they would be given their shots within six weeks.
Government minister David Littleproud on 31st March sought to blame the states for doing “bugger all” on the vaccine rollout. Australian states have hit back at the federal government after it blamed them for a slow vaccine rollout, with the New South Wales health minister, Brad Hazzard, demanding an apology, while Queensland’s deputy premier, Steven Miles, called on the Nationals deputy leader, David Littleproud, to “give himself an uppercut”.
/ Queensland’s deputy premier, Steven Miles
/ New South Wales health minister, Brad Hazzard (left)
A key area of responsibility for the federal government is vaccinating aged care staff and residents who are both in the highest priority group for vaccinations – phase 1a. Initially, the government said it had planned to complete phase 1a within roughly six weeks of the program’s commencement on 22 February.
That included vaccinating 190,000 aged and disability care residents and 318,000 aged care and disability staff. With less than a week left until it hits the six-week target, the government has vaccinated roughly 99,000 aged and disability care residents. It has not said how many aged care staff have been vaccinated.
The rollout of Covid-19 vaccinations in aged care “has been a shemozzle”, with some residents and staff in homes throughout Australia still not being given any indication of when they might receive their first dose.
The federal government initially committed to administering 4m doses by the end of March, including up to 1.4m doses to the most high-risk people as part of phase 1a of the rollout. Fewer than 692,000 doses had been administered as of 1 April.
Health minister Greg Hunt said on Wednesday that the national vaccination program was now “accelerating as intended0”.
The government has already missed its initial target of 4m vaccinations by the end of March, though that target was revised due to problems with international supply. The government now hopes to have all first doses administered by October. The government hit a record high number of vaccinations with 72,000 on Wednesday.
“We were conservative in our estimates,” Hunt said.
“The best advice that we have, as Prof Murphy reaffirmed when he stood up with the prime minister recently, is that we remain on track to complete first doses for all Australians who seek it by the end of October.”
