DAVID KOCH:
Okay. Let's check in with the experts. For more, Deputy Chief Medical Officer Professor Michael Kidd. Michael, good to see you. Let's just answer that question first, will there be a 21-day gap between the jabs? Or is- are we going to follow other countries and lengthen it?
MICHAEL KIDD:
So, the plan is that we follow the advice of the manufacturers of these vaccines. For the Pfizer vaccine, you're correct, Kochie, that's the 21 days between the two doses, and our plan is to follow that regime.
DAVID KOCH:
Okay. Talk us through the rollout once the vaccine gets here.
MICHAEL KIDD:
So the vaccine arrives in Australia. What happens is the Therapeutic Goods Administration does what is called batch testing to ensure the safety of the vaccine which has been received. That vaccine will then be transported, and as you know the Pfizer vaccine has very specific transportation requirements - it has to be kept at a very low temperature of minus 70 degrees. It will be transported out to between 30 and 50 hubs sets up around Australia between the Australian Government and the states and territories, and in those hubs, people will be receiving their vaccines.
There will also be outreach teams which will be taking the vaccine in, again, especially designed containers out to the residents and the staff of aged care facilities and disability care facilities across the country.
DAVID KOCH:
Right. And though it'll be a staged introduction, frontline healthcare workers and emergency services first. Just quickly, one thing that has people scratching their head, I suppose, is meat processing workers are in that batch of emergency services. Why are they there?
MICHAEL KIDD:
Well, we have seen some very significant outbreaks of COVID-19 in abattoirs, in meat processing facilities in Australia, but also overseas. So, it is an area of significant risk, in part related to the circumstances in which people are working - people working in very close contact and …
DAVID KOCH:
[Talks over] And in the cold, and things like that.
MICHAEL KIDD:
… so those groups- Yes. So the ATAGI Group, the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation is providing advice on where each individual group of Australians fall on that list of priorities which you went through earlier in the program.
DAVID KOCH:
Okay. Overnight, Moderna revealed its vaccine appears to work against the more infectious UK and South African variants of the virus. Will the Pfizer one do the same?
MICHAEL KIDD:
So the results of the research and the clinical trials to date show that both the Pfizer vaccine and the AstraZeneca vaccine, which is the next vaccine being considered for approval in Australia, both appear to provide high levels of protection…
DAVID KOCH:
[Talks over] Good.
MICHAEL KIDD:
… against the variants of concern which have appeared. But we are following this very, very closely; and obviously, as new variants appear and particularly new variants that are shown to be more transmissible and so at risk causing even greater numbers of people being infected…
DAVID KOCH:
[Talks over] Okay.
MICHAEL KIDD:
… in an outbreak, we're following each of these variants very closely.
DAVID KOCH:
Alright. Michael Kidd, thanks for that. Appreciate it.
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