Sharpen up: Health chiefs face a grilling over slow start to vaccine rollout
Australia’s most senior health officials are set to be grilled about the coronavirus vaccine rollout which is falling short of lofty government targets.
More than 100,000 people have received their first dose but the figure is well short of what was promised with the rollout in its third week.
The government previously committed to four million people being administered jabs by the end of March and at least one dose being available to all adults by October.
Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly and Health Department boss Brendan Murphy will front the Senateās coronavirus response committee in Canberra on Thursday.
Medical experts outside government are adamant the October goal is more likely to be achieved by the end of the year.
But Professor Murphy has defended the speed of the rollout, which he argues doesnāt need to mirror other nations with high case numbers and death tolls.
āThis is not a race,ā he told reporters.
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āWe have no burning platform in Australia. We are taking it as quickly and carefully and safely as we can.
āWeāre not like the US or the UK or most other countries in the world where theyāve got people in hospital dying.ā
In January, Prime Minister Scott Morrison set the March target of four million which he later clarified to early April amid global supply pressure.
Now he says the speed of the rollout is āsubject to eventsā.
But despite scepticism from experts, Morrison is sticking to the October population-wide timeline.
āWe will get this done by October as we said we would,ā he told Seven.
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āBut weāve got to do it safe ā as Brendan Murphy said, this is not a race ā what is most important is the health and safety of Australians in the vaccination program and thatās what weāve principally focused on.
The prime minister is confident the vaccine rollout will gain speed.
āTowards the end of this month weāll see the Australian-produced vaccines coming into the program,ā he said.
āThat means weāll be able to roll them out at around a million a week. When we get to that scale, I think weāll see a real gear change.ā
Deputy Labor leader Richard Marles said the opposition would hold the government to meeting its targets.
āAustralians want to see the rollout obviously happen as safely as possible, as carefully as possible,ā he told Sky News.
āBut they also want to see it happen as quickly as possible, because thatās how we get through this.ā
Between the Pfizer and AstraZeneca jabs, there are 1.3 million doses of overseas-produced vaccines now in Australia.
Murphy said recent data out of the UK had shown both options were on par after initial studies showed Pfizer was more effective.
About a quarter of the people who have received vaccines are in vulnerable categories such as aged care and disability residents.
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