FRAN KELLY:
Professor Michael Kidd is the Acting Chief Medical Officer of the Commonwealth of Australia. I spoke with him a short time ago.
[Excerpt]
MICHAEL KIDD:
Thank you, Fran.
FRAN KELLY:
Supply constraints mean the vaccine won't arrive, or the Pfizer vaccine won't arrive until the end of February. Once it's here how soon will people get their jabs.
MICHAEL KIDD:
So, when the vaccine arrives in the country the Therapeutic Goods Administration does its usual work - looking at the batches which arrive to make sure that everything is at it should be - and then within two weeks of a vaccine arriving in the country we should start to see the vaccine rolling out, initially of course, through those 30 to 50 hubs which will be- which are being set up around Australia to deliver the initial doses of the vaccine.
FRAN KELLY:
Okay. I'll come back to the hubs in a moment, but just to look at a timeline. We're not expecting the vaccine to arrive until the end of February? Or the jabs to be delivered, start being delivered at the end of February?
MICHAEL KIDD:
Yes. We hope the first dose of the vaccine will be administered late in February.
FRAN KELLY:
Okay. Pfizer is supplying Australia 10 million vaccines at two doses for five million people - it's a double dose vaccine. What's your confidence level in terms of actually getting our hands on the 10 million Pfizer vaccine doses? Because it's facing manufacturing constraints in Europe, we know that. Pfizer won't be drawn on the timetable for delivering all 10 million doses to Australia, it'll only say it'll happen, quote: over the course of 2021. Is there any guarantee when it comes to a timeframe for delivering the doses after the first batch we get at the end of February? And, what might any delays mean for the second follow-up shot?
MICHAEL KIDD:
So, certainly the Australian government is in very close contact with Pfizer about the timeframe for the vaccines arriving in Australia, and the forward time frame about what we can expect to receive, when. It's very important that people receive-
FRAN KELLY:
[Interrupts] And what are we hearing on that? I mean, we've got this guarantee for the first batch of, I think, it's 80,000. But what are we hearing in terms of delivery through the year? How quickly are we going to get our hands on these 10 million doses?
MICHAEL KIDD:
So at the moment, we don't know exactly how long it's going to take to get the 10 million doses, just that it will happen throughout the course of 2021. But it is really important the people who do get that vaccine get the second dose of the vaccine, and that has to happen 21 days or so after the administration of the first dose in order for the vaccine to be fully effective.
FRAN KELLY:
Okay. So they can't wait six weeks to get the second dose, or two months.
MICHAEL KIDD:
[Talks over] That's right.
FRAN KELLY:
They need it within 21 days.
MICHAEL KIDD:
[Talks over] Yes, you're right.
FRAN KELLY:
Phase two of the inoculation programme here is slated to start mid-March with the AstraZeneca vaccine - that's going to be administered more broadly, we've got more more doses of that. But trials suggest the Pfizer vaccine stops infection in 95 per cent of people, the AstraZeneca jab falls- the effectiveness falls to 62 per cent. Does that mean most of us will- or actually, some of us will receive better protection from COVID-19? And most of us won't be so lucky?
MICHAEL KIDD:
Well, what we know from the clinical trials is that both of the vaccines are very effective at preventing serious disease, and of course, the risk of death from COVID-19 - so that is the most important issue, that is the protection which is being provided by these vaccines. We do know that- we're waiting for the AstraZeneca clinical trial results to come through to the Therapeutic Goods Administration, there are further trials which have been carried out since those initial reports which came out towards the end of last year. So we'll know more about the effectiveness of the vaccine in preventing the development of mild to moderate symptoms over the coming weeks.
FRAN KELLY:
Does that mean we are hopeful or confident the AstraZeneca vaccine will be more effective in terms of stopping infection than 62 per cent of cases?
MICHAEL KIDD:
So, what we know is that the AstraZeneca vaccine is very effective at stopping serious infection. The trials that…
FRAN KELLY:
[Talks over] But not mild and moderate?
MICHAEL KIDD:
… are shown in the report is mild to moderate, that's correct. But there are further clinical trials which are being carried out, and further analysis of that. So we need to wait for those results to come through, which will be part of the TGA review and approval process over the, over the next few weeks. The other thing, of course, we don't know about either of the vaccines though, Fran, is whether they prevent people from still being infected, but not developing symptoms, and at risk of transmitting COVID-19 still to other people, and that just reinforces for us how important it's going to be - even though we may get the vaccine rolling out right across Australia - that the people still adhere to the public health measures, as we have been over the past 12 months.
FRAN KELLY:
Yeah. I mean, is that the Holy Grail? To find a vaccine that stops transmission? Because without that, we don't stop this virus in its track, do we? We just stop ourselves from getting very sick.
MICHAEL KIDD:
That's right. Because that's an incredible step forward from where we have been over the last year - to prevent serious infection and death from COVID-19.
FRAN KELLY:
No vaccine has 100 per cent efficacy. Does that mean that someone could still die from COVID-19 if they've had the vaccine?
MICHAEL KIDD:
That that is still a sad possibility. And the other thing we don't know about the vaccines as yet, because it's still very early in the day, is how long the immunity from the vaccine will last in each individual. And as you've seen in some of the media reports it may well be that, just like for the flu vaccine, people will require boosters of COVID-19 vaccines in order to continue protection over the, over the long term.
FRAN KELLY:
And also, Michael, the World Health Organisation isn't recommending pregnant women get vaccinated due to, they say, insufficient data about risks. The TGA is advising here that it, quote: should be only considered when the potential benefits outweigh any risks for the mother and the foetus. So what are the risks? What's your guidance to women who are pregnant?
MICHAEL KIDD:
Yeah. So, we're still waiting for further, more detailed advice from the TGA about the recommendations for women who are pregnant, and also for women who are breastfeeding. And again, it is early, early in the process. So obviously, we don't want to be recommending vaccines, or any medicines which may cause concerns. We haven't seen problems arising in the use of the vaccines overseas, but it is still very early in the process. And so it does become a matter of balancing up the risk, the risk between being exposed and infected with COVID-19 and the potential risk to the unborn foetus.
FRAN KELLY:
With these risks like that and with the unknowns that we've been discussing here, how worried are you that people in the community won't put their hand up for vaccination? They'll think, well, I'm going to wait. I'm going to wait until more is known about the risks and the uncertainties. And what, what are we going to do to counter that?
MICHAEL KIDD:
Well, I think we're going to have very high levels of uptake of this vaccine across the country and especially in the groups of people who are in Phase 1a and 1b who-
FRAN KELLY:
[Interrupts] And why do you think that? Do we have research to give you that confidence?
MICHAEL KIDD:
We- certainly, there's been consumer research looking at the expectations of people about whether they would take up the vaccine or not. But remember, in the first two phases this includes the people who are most at risk of serious disease or death; people age 70 and above; people who are residents in aged care facilities' people who are working in settings where they are much more likely to come in contact with COVID-19; people with significant chronic health problems, which put them at increased risk of COVID-19. The Australian government will be rolling out very significant communication campaigns over the weeks ahead to inform people about the vaccines and to address any concerns that individual people may have.
FRAN KELLY:
And now, of course, we have these new strains, the- what we call the UK and the South African variants more- much more transmissible, much more contagious, perhaps more dangerous too. Do we know how effective these vaccines we're talking about getting here in Australia will be against these new strains? And are we likely to need booster shots above and beyond the two jabs?
MICHAEL KIDD:
So at the moment, the research into both the Pfizer vaccine and the AstraZeneca vaccine shows that they both appear to be effective against the new variants of concern which have arisen around the world. Obviously, that work needs to continue if additional new variants continue to appear, to look at the effectiveness of the vaccine. It may well be over the long term that this becomes similar to what we've seen with the influenza vaccine where, of course, each year we get a booster vaccine which protects us against new strains which have developed and which are circulating over- around the world.
FRAN KELLY:
Just finally, Michael, the news, the case in New Zealand, the woman who was diagnosed with that highly contagious South African variant after spending two weeks in quarantine, two negative tests, and then some days after she's released she tested positive for this case and it's believed she caught it in quarantine. The Government has accepted your advice to suspend the quarantine free travel arrangement from New Zealand for 72-hours. What do you expect to learn in this period? And is it likely that period may be extended?
MICHAEL KIDD:
So certainly, the case- sorry, the genome sequencing for that case was only carried out on Sunday and the results were released yesterday, showing that this was the so-called South African variant, the B1351 variant which, as you say, has increased transmissibility. We have the 72-hour pause on the Green Zone flights from New Zealand, which allows us to see what comes through from the investigations of the health authorities in New Zealand. They're currently conducting extensive contact tracing and testing of people who may have been in contact with that particular person, that person been to over 30 different venues around New Zealand since being released from hotel quarantine on 13 January.
[End of excerpt]
FRAN KELLY:
Acting Chief Minister- Chief Medical Officer, Professor Michael Kidd.