MONIQUE WRIGHT:
Well, Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Professor Michael Kidd, joins us now. Good morning to you. Thank you for being with us. Let's talk first about the Djokovic case. This court outcome is a major setback for the Government. Can we just be clear here: is the advice not to accept people who have recently recovered from COVID from overseas?
MICHAEL KIDD:
Look, I'm sorry, Monique, I'm not able to talk about that particular case and I have no information about it. But what I can talk about today is the vaccination program which commenced yesterday for our five to 11-year-olds. And I can reveal that yesterday we now have, at midnight last night, over 35,000 five to 11-year-olds, in fact 35,077, who have lined up to get their first shot of a COVID-19 vaccine. And this is a fantastic start to the five to 11-year-old program, getting those children obviously back to school safely for this year.
MONIQUE WRIGHT:
It hasn't been fantastic for everybody though, Professor. I'm one of the parents that's had a lot of difficulty getting three kids appointments. Should we as a public just accept that when new things with COVID happen, like kids now being vaccinated, that there's going to be a shaky start? Or should it be a little be smoother?
MICHAEL KIDD:
Well, we currently have over 6000 sites where children can receive the Pfizer paediatric COVID-19 vaccine, that will be increasing to 8000 sites over the coming few days. What we're recommending to people is that if you can't get an appointment with your own GP, and I do recognise that many parents would like to have this vaccine administered at their own general practice, but if you can't get an appointment there over the coming week, if you look around, there are pharmacies in your local area, the state and territory vaccination clinics are opening up and offering appointments. So there are new appointments coming online all the time as deliveries arrive at general practices and pharmacies and other clinics around the country.
MONIQUE WRIGHT:
Okay, one million Australians at least have been diagnosed with COVID - what's your information telling you about when we see the peak, and will it drop off quickly?
MICHAEL KIDD:
Yeah, so, the answer to that about when we'll see the peak in the numbers of infections is something that we actually don't know. What we are doing is watching very closely to see what's been happening in countries around the world, which have started their Omicron outbreak ahead of when we first saw Omicron in Australia, and particularly in South Africa. But you have to remember that Australia is very different to many other countries, because while many other countries have already had a lot of people exposed and infected with COVID-19 over the past two years, that has not been the case in Australia. So we need to take this a day at a time.
MONIQUE WRIGHT:
Alright. Well, Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Professor Michael Kidd, a day at the moment seems like a lifetime, as I'm sure it does for you, but it does for all of us. Thank you.
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