RAF EPSTEIN:
It's a big moment in the vaccine rollout because millions of people now qualify to receive their vaccine for the coronavirus. Now, just because millions of people qualify, doesn't mean millions of people are going to get the vaccine straight away.
Professor Michael Kidd joins us. He is the Deputy Chief Medical Officer with the Federal Department of Health, he is the second most senior doctor advising the Federal Government. Michael Kidd, thanks for joining us once again. How are we going right now, today, do you think?
MICHAEL KIDD:
Well, of course, this is day one, but a very important day with the commencement of phase 1b of the vaccine rollout. And as you say, another six million people who we expect are going to get the first dose of the vaccine over the next two to three months, they'll be getting the AstraZeneca vaccine. You get one vaccine on the first day and then 12 weeks later, you get your second, your second dose. Over this week, we'll be delivering over a quarter of a million doses to people right across Australia, that will be happening through a thousand general practices, the initial general practices which are rolling out the vaccine. And also-
RAF EPSTEIN:
[Interrupts] Did you say a quarter of a million doses being delivered this week?
MICHAEL KIDD:
That's right. That's right. Two hundred thousand doses through general practices and 50,000 doses through the 100 plus general practise-led respiratory clinics across the country. Now, that will be scaling up very quickly over the next three weeks or so to at least 400,000 doses a week as another three and a half thousand general practices come online right around the country.
And then, of course, the good news from yesterday that the CSL facility has been approved and we can start getting the rollout of the AstraZeneca vaccine produced locally in Australia. The Therapeutic Goods Administration is now conducting batch testing on the initial batches of that vaccine that's been produced by CSL. Those vaccines will become available over the next week or so once the batch testing is completed and added to the doses that we've received from overseas. CSL, we're expecting, when it gets up to speed, will be rolling out at least a million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine per week, which means once that happens, we're going to be able to continue to scale up the rollout through general practises, through these respiratory clinics, Aboriginal health services around the country, and also through the hubs set up by the states and territories which will start to pivot to deliver to people in 1b once they complete their rollout for people in 1a.
RAF EPSTEIN:
The communication of this - clearly, GP clinics had significant interruptions last week. I actually wanted to, if I can, Professor, play you James, called in after you spoke to us last week - he's a practise manager in Doncaster - and, Professor, you suggested people should go to the website, if they can't get the detail on the website to then call their GP. James is a Practice Manager - he was unhappy.
[Excerpt]
CALLER JAMES:
Raf, my staff and my medical centre have been driven crazy, mainly by people like Professor Kidd saying ring your medical centre for information. my staff do not have that access to that information; We do not have the vaccines in stock; We can't make appointments; and, we don't know what to tell people apart from we don't know.
[End of excerpt]
RAF EPSTEIN:
Professor Kidd, he did say he also has great respect for your, your professional expertise and experience. But was that a mistake, saying people should call if they can't get through on line?
MICHAEL KIDD:
No. no. So, the basis of the rollout of the vaccine in 1b, and continuing as we move into phase two and start to vaccinate other members of the population by age groups, is we're rolling out the vaccine through general practices right across Australia. And the reason that we're doing this is because general practice is where people usually receive their vaccines in this country. This is where we rollout the vast majority of the childhood immunisation programmes, it's where we roll out the vast majority of the vaccines each year for the annual influenza programmes.
So, working with the Australian Medical Association, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners and others, the, the preference was that we roll out the vaccine through the general practises that the people normally attend.
RAF EPSTEIN:
[Interrupts] Can I interrupt, Professor? I think, I think James' point - so many GPs made the same point - don't call. They wanted to- They didn't want that message that GP clinics should be phoned last week. Was that your mistake, suggesting people should call?
MICHAEL KIDD:
No, not at all. Again, the, the information about what people should be doing, which is available on the online vaccine eligibility checker, provides the details of which practices are currently involved in rolling out the vaccine. And on that checker, it has the details for those practises. Now that- As I've said, there's a thousand practices which are involved this week in rolling out the vaccine - their details are on the vaccine checker; and there's either their phone number there, which has been provided by the general practices …
RAF EPSTEIN:
[Talks over] But you do …
MICHAEL KIDD:
… or there's their online details, links to their online booking. Now, obviously preferable, if we can, for people to be making bookings online - there's 300 practices to date which have links to their online booking systems - because that avoids the receptionists being overwhelmed with, with calls from concerned patients. But general practises right across the country have been managing the concerns of many of their patients for the last few months …
RAF EPSTEIN:
[Talks over] Professor, can I interrupt?
MICHAEL KIDD:
… as we've been building up towards the vaccine rollout.
RAF EPSTEIN:
So, my question isn't about the suitability of the GP clinics or their ability to do the work. Surely, you must know that last week a whole lot of GP clinics actually couldn't do their day-to-day work because they were inundated with phone calls. Is that, is that not a communications problem?
MICHAEL KIDD:
Look, this was - I acknowledge that there were disruptions for quite a number of practices right across the country with people ringing through, and some people are being less than polite to the receptionists who are taking their calls, and, yes, that is, that is a problem. And many practices, of course, which are-
RAF EPSTEIN:
[Interrupts] [Indistinct] Couldn't you have said, Couldn't you have said to them, don't call them, they will call you. Wouldn't that have been, Wouldn't not have been more [indistinct]?
MICHAEL KIDD:
[Talks over] No. Because we're rolling the vaccine out in two ways. Firstly, practices, yes, are contacting- once they get the vaccine, practices are contacting, in many cases, their patients and booking their patients in initially - and particularly prioritising patients who are very elderly, patients who have significant chronic disease, the people who are most at risk if they were to contract COVID-19. But also, many practices are taking bookings from their patients, but also from other people in their local communities. The practices which are involved in- have put their hands up and are involved in rolling out the vaccine, are doing this as a service to their entire local communities - not just to the [audio skip] patients who are registered patients of their practise.
RAF EPSTEIN:
We've had a few people telling us that some of the GP clinics didn't receive their vaccination deliveries over the weekend and they've had to cancel some appointments today. Do you know if that's happened? Or if it's happened in a widespread way?
MICHAEL KIDD:
So, the advice that I've received is that all the Victorian general practices who are involved in rolling out the vaccine in the first week have received their doses of the vaccine for this week. So, there were some deliveries which were made over the weekend. Most of the deliveries were made during the weekdays last week. Now, the only caveat there is that some practices which were scheduled to be rolling out last week didn't put in their orders, presumably because they're wanting to delay until the week after. So obviously, without their orders, they didn't, didn't receive.
RAF EPSTEIN:
So, no. You don't- you haven't had any reports of people cancelling vaccine- vaccinations that were supposed to happen today? You haven't heard of them being cancelled because of a failure to deliver over the last few days?
MICHAEL KIDD:
No, I haven't, haven't heard of that. And we weren't expecting every general practice to commence the vaccine rollout on Monday. So, some were scheduled to commence on Tuesday, and some of those practises have received the vaccines today, and others on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. So, it's a staggered start right through the country. The area where we have not been able to make deliveries has been in those towns affected by the severe flooding in New South Wales. And there's 25 sites in 20 towns where we have not been able to make deliveries and we won't be able to do that, obviously, until our roads open up and it's safe to make those deliveries.
RAF EPSTEIN:
You mentioned 250,000 doses to be delivered this week. If there's another stoppage out of the AstraZeneca supply coming from Europe, a whole lot of issues there. But if they stop some more of the supplies coming out of Europe, will that slow us down here?
MICHAEL KIDD:
It might. But the good thing is with CSL coming online, we hope that the batch testing will be able to take place quickly and that we'll be able to start supplementing those overseas doses with our locally produced doses.
RAF EPSTEIN:
[Talks over] But I guess we're still prey to what happens in Europe, aren't we?
MICHAEL KIDD:
For a little bit longer, but hopefully, not for too long. We have a contract with CSL to deliver over 50 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine over the coming year. So that will mean that we are not susceptible to whatever is happening in other parts of the world. We'll be producing the vaccine onshore here in Australia.
RAF EPSTEIN:
I'm not sure if you heard our earlier conversation, Professor Kidd, about the flow state. Comes from this jazz-inspired Pixar film called Soul. I'm not sure if you've been prepped to answer this one, but have you got an activity in your life where you feel you get into that flow state, time sort of stands still.
MICHAEL KIDD:
You've lost me there, Raf. [Laughs]
RAF EPSTEIN:
Oh, that's okay. That's okay. We didn't prep you. No problem. I appreciate your time. We'll speak again. Good luck with the rollout.
MICHAEL KIDD:
That's great. Thanks so much. And thanks to everybody for your patience, but also a huge thanks to all those general practices in Victoria involved in the rollout. Thank you.
RAF EPSTEIN:
Thanks a lot. Professor Michael Kidd there. He's the Deputy Chief Medical Officer with the Federal Department of Health.
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