RAF EPSTEIN:
One of those who's crucial in the rollout is the Deputy Chief Medical Officer, so he's one of the senior doctors advising the Commonwealth Government. Professor Michael Kidd, thanks for your time.
MICHAEL KIDD:
Thanks, Raf.
RAF EPSTEIN:
How do you think the rollout's going?
MICHAEL EPSTEIN:
Look, this is a huge logistic exercise, and of course, it's not without its challenges, but it's also an incredibly exciting time for the nation, Raf, as we roll out these vaccines, which are going to provide protection to the people of Australia against developing serious complications from COVID-19. It's an incredibly important time, a huge vote of thanks to my fellow GPs right around Australia. General practice is going to be the hub of much of the vaccination of the people of Australia over the coming weeks. And as you know, thousands of general practices have put up their hands to be part of this mass immunisation program, the biggest mass immunisation program in our country's history.
RAF EPSTEIN:
Do you think it's a problem that the GPs were overwhelmed with calls?
MICHAEL KIDD:
Look, I think that firstly, it's- we don't want people to panic. We want people to be patient. And we are going to be rolling out the vaccine, obviously, over the coming weeks and months. Now, people who are in that Phase 1B obviously will be now wanting to make appointments so that they know when they're going to be able to receive the vaccine. Yes, we did have some practises who reported they were inundated with requests. We had several hundred thousand people who went onto the vaccine eligibility checker yesterday, which is available at health.gov.au and then followed through to try and contact some of the initial sites where the vaccine's being distributed. From next week we'll only be rolling out the vaccine in 1000 general practices across Australia, but over the coming four weeks, there'll be four and a half thousand practices available. So please be patient. We don't have significant community transmission of COVID-19 in Australia at the moment. There's going to be plenty of time for everyone to get their vaccine.
RAF EPSTEIN:
Do you think the GPs are getting enough information?
MICHAEL KIDD:
Look, the Australian government has been having steady and consistent communication with general practices right throughout the past year. We have webinars for all of Australia's GPs at least once a week. We have newsletters going out regularly. We had a special meeting yesterday with all practices which are involved.
RAF EPSTEIN:
[Interrupts] Excuse me, Professor, can I interrupt? Forgive me. I appreciate and I know about that- the connection, the information that the Federal Government gives to GPs. But there's tons of them saying they weren't told enough to prepare for yesterday. Would you concede that there were flaws in the information you gave to GPs in anticipation of that list going up yesterday?
MICHAEL KIDD:
Well, in addition to all the other sources of information that that I was outlining, the over 1000 clinics received emails on Tuesday morning advising that their details were going to be included on the vaccine clinic finder from Wednesday, from yesterday. So that information did go out to practices. I concede that some of the practices may not have opened or received the emails. People are incredibly busy preparing for this rollout to make sure that they can deliver these vaccines to the members of their local population.
RAF EPSTEIN:
I'm not sure if it matters that you haven't hit the initial goal, but the Prime Minister did say we'd have 4 million doses administered by the end of this month in just under two weeks. We clearly haven't met that target. Is that a problem?
MICHAEL EPSTEIN:
Well, as you know, the main reason why we haven't been able to meet that target has been the supply of vaccine from overseas and the challenges in getting the shipments which we're expecting of vaccines coming through. Fortunately, we have the local production of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which will start rolling out over the coming few weeks from CSL in Melbourne. They'll be rolling out at least a million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine a week, and we'll be rolling that out through these 4500 general practices through the over 100 Commonwealth funded respiratory clinics, which are now vaccination clinics across the country, through Aboriginal community-controlled health services, and through the state and territory hubs. So we're going to be seeing a rapid upscaling of the number of people receiving the vaccine each week over the coming few weeks.
RAF EPSTEIN:
It's obviously significant and important if we make some- a lot of the vaccine here. Would we be rolling out vaccine more quickly if we had ordered more from overseas, from more- from a larger number of sources? Do you think that would have avoided some of the problems?
MICHAEL KIDD:
Well, of course, there are only a limited number of vaccines currently available around the world. There are over 200 under development and going through their trials, but there's only a handful which are currently available. We have a third vaccine which is on order under contract for Australia. That's the Novavax vaccine, but it's still going through its clinical trials. It hasn't been registered anywhere.
RAF EPSTEIN:
[Interrupts] So is that a no, Professor? That even if we'd- even if we had more vaccines as an option, do you think the rollout would be at the same speed?
MICHAEL KIDD:
I expect so. I mean, it's difficult to know. But the pressure that we've seen overseas with the vaccine in those countries where COVID-19 currently is raging largely out of control with overwhelmed health care systems, clearly, it's no surprise, I guess, that some of those countries are limiting the ability to export the vaccine to other parts of the world.
RAF EPSTEIN:
So if I can just ask you to directly address the criticism - I'll come to what people need to know, I think that is important - but you know the criticism; I'm sure you've heard it: we put all our money on AstraZeneca and all of our money, you know, the backbone of our effort is the AstraZeneca we make here. Was that a mistake or not?
MICHAEL KIDD:
No, I don't think so. I think that was an incredibly important decision, because what it does is it means that we have production of one of the major vaccines, and one of the first vaccines to be approved worldwide, happening here in Australia. And means that we are not susceptible to the problems with shipping which we're seeing in other parts of the world. We saw the example in the United Kingdom where they were having to delay way beyond the recommended time to get a second dose because they just weren't receiving the second doses of some vaccines. So having AstraZeneca being produce on shore in Australia provides some safeguard against that. But again, we will be having onshore deliveries from overseas continuing. Of the Pfizer vaccine, we have 20 million doses expected to come into Australia this calendar year. And if it's approved, we have 50 million doses of the Novavax vaccine, which will be coming into Australia as well. And we also have bought the ability through the COVAX facility, an international consortium, to be able to access other vaccines as well.
RAF EPSTEIN:
Do you think everyone's going to have had two doses by the end of the calendar year?
MICHAEL KIDD:
I expect that that will happen. I hope that that will happen. But we've had to push some of the timelines out of it, because with the AstraZeneca vaccine, initially we weren't- we thought there may be a shorter time period when it was recommended to get the second dose, but that's being pushed out to 12 weeks in order to get the maximum immune response from that vaccine, and it provides a very strong immune response if you get your second dose at 12 weeks. And so that pushes the vaccine out. But yes, our intention is that everyone in Australia who wishes to receive the COVID-19 vaccine will be able to get both doses this year. And I hope, Raf, that all of your listeners will get the vaccine. This is going to be incredibly important in not only protecting each individual person from serious disease, but also protecting our loved ones and the wider community.
RAF EPSTEIN:
Professor Michael Kidd is with us, he's the Deputy Chief Medical Officer for the Federal Government, which means he's the- well not the second most important, one of the group of senior doctors who advise the Federal Government on significant medical issues. Clearly now the vaccine rollout is important.
Professor, can I just ask you to just very clearly say to people, if I want to get the vaccine in the next few weeks, I think I'm eligible to. Who do I call or where do I go online?
MICHAEL KIDD:
Yes, so online you go to health.gov.au, the Australian Government Department of Health website. The very top item there is the eligibility checker so that you can enter your details very quickly and simply to find out which phase you are in for getting the vaccine. And then from there, you will be taken to a page where you put in your postcode and then you'll find where the vaccine is going to be delivered in locations which are geographically close to where you're based. From there, you'll be able to either find the phone number of the clinic that you might choose that you want to go to or in some cases there is online booking available. You can go through to the website for the clinic. If you don't have access to the Internet, you can, of course, contact your local general practise and just find out when is the vaccine going to become available and are you able to make an appointment.
RAF EPSTEIN:
Knowing how many doses have been delivered, how many doses have been administered, that's crucial information for people and for media organisations and for those who want to independently assess how we are going. Do you know when you're going to be giving us daily information about, say, doses delivered to each state, do we know when we'll be getting that as a daily figure?
MICHAEL KIDD:
Yes, I can't tell you when that's going to happen. We are, of course, having daily reports on the total number of doses which have been administered across the country and very importantly, on the total number of people in aged care, residential aged care facilities and disability care facilities who've received vaccines as part of the initial Phase 1A rollout. We will have details on how many vaccine doses are going out to general practises and the Commonwealth Government funded general practise respiratory clinics each week. But of course, then it's up to the individual practises to determine how they're going to administer those doses to their population, whether they're going to be doing it on a daily basis, or whether they're running [indistinct].
RAF EPSTEIN:
[Talks over] And are you aiming to give daily information about how many doses have been delivered to GP practises? Is that the aim?
MICHAEL KIDD:
Look, the rollout will actually be on a weekly basis to each of the practises rather than daily.
RAF EPSTEIN:
And the figures for the states, are we- would we expect them each week or daily?
MICHAEL KIDD:
Yes. I can't tell you what's going to happen with reporting at a state level.
RAF EPSTEIN:
The issues around AstraZeneca, we've actually canvassed a fair bit this week that there's no evidence of any significant concern. But I wonder if you feel that there's been any damage inflicted on people's willingness to get the vaccine because of the reports coming out of Europe?
MICHAEL KIDD:
Yes, I don't think so. I think that we've had very strong responses to what's happened in Europe from the Therapeutic Goods Administration, our independent regulator of vaccines and other medications in Australia. We've had very strong statements coming out from ATAGI, the Australian Technical Advisory Committee on Immunisation, which provides the research based guidance on our immunisation programmes in Australia. A very strong statement yesterday, also from Professor Paul Kelly, Australia's Chief Medical Officer. So I think that people can be reassured about the safety of the vaccine rollout as it's occurring in Australia. And of course, we are seeing this huge interest in making appointments to get the vaccine from many, many people right across Australia.
RAF EPSTEIN:
So you don't think it'll damage people's willingness?
MICHAEL KIDD:
I don't think so. I think that people are watching very closely. But also people know that this vaccine is going to save lives and it's an essential part of tackling this pandemic.
RAF EPSTEIN:
Appreciate your time and thank you for your work as well.
MICHAEL KIDD:
Thank you so much, Raf. Thank you.
RAF EPSTEIN:
Professor Michael Kidd, he's the Deputy Chief Medical Officer for the Commonwealth Government. So he is the second most senior doctor advising the Federal Government as a medical expert on the vaccine and the pandemic.
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