MICHAEL KIDD:
Good afternoon, my name is Professor Michael Kidd the Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health in Canberra. In the past 24 hours, there have been four new cases of COVID-19 reported in Australia: all overseas acquired, and all among people in quarantine facilities. There have been no cases of community transmission. Sixty people are currently in hospital with COVID-19, and two people are in intensive care units. This contrasts with the global situation, where cases continue to be very high. In the past 24 hours, over half a million people, 502,691 people, have been reported as new cases of COVID-19 around the world. In the past 24 hours, 8479 people have been reported two have lost their lives to COVID-19. Globally, there have been more than 122 million cases of COVID-19 reported and over 2.7 million deaths since the start of the pandemic. In many countries, health services continue be seriously challenged by this disease.
Phase 1B of Australia's COVID-19 vaccine rollout commences tomorrow. Over the coming week, over 1000 general practices in cities and country towns right across Australia will commence the administration of the AstraZeneca vaccine to high-risk members of their communities. They will be progressively joined by a number of the Commonwealth-funded, general practitioner-led respiratory clinics and by a number of Aboriginal community-controlled health organisations over the coming week. Over the coming few weeks, 4500 general practices will start to roll out the vaccine to the members of their local communities. A reminder about the people in Phase 1B who will be eligible to make an appointment to receive the vaccine over the coming couple of months. You can find out whether you are eligible by going to the national eligibility checker and the vaccination information and location service on the Department of Health website, health.gov.au. Over 750,000 people accessed the eligibility checker on Wednesday and Thursday last week, seeking information about the vaccines, and this reinforces the very high number of people right across Australia expected to make bookings over the coming weeks to receive the vaccine. There are over 1000 general practices listed already on the website, and thousands more will be added over the coming weeks. Well over 300 of the general practice listings now include links to the practices' online booking systems. The Department of Health is working with the remaining general practices to add links to their online booking systems, where the practice has one.
The people eligible under Phase 1B include all Australians aged 70 and over, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 55 years and above, adults of any age with a serious underlying medical condition or a disability which puts them at increased risk if infected with COVID-19, people working in healthcare settings, and a number of other critical and high risk workers, including people working in the defence forces, police, fire, emergency, meat processing and COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing. We'll be vaccinating around 6 million people in Australia as part of Phase 1B. Obviously we won't be able to vaccinate all 6 million people tomorrow or over the coming week, so please be patient. There will be plenty of vaccine available over the coming weeks and months. At the moment, some general practices will only receive 50 doses a week, and they will be prioritising their most elderly and most unwell patients. We're expecting a steadily increasing supply of the AstraZeneca vaccine to general practices over the weeks ahead. I'm advised that the Therapeutic Goods Administration anticipates that the relevant approvals for the CSL Australian manufacturing site of the AstraZeneca vaccine will be completed in the coming days.
A reminder about the announcement from the European regulator at the end of last week, declaring the AstraZeneca vaccine safe. This reinforces the advice received during the week from Australia's Therapeutic Goods Administration, from the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation, and from Australia's Chief Medical Officer. The Australian Government has complete confidence in the AstraZeneca vaccine and its continuing rollout in Australia. We are aware that there have been some delays in delivery of doses of the vaccine, especially to areas affected by flooding and bad weather along the eastern coast of the continent. The distributors are doing all they can to ensure timely deliveries, and we thank them for the work that they are doing. But there will be some inevitable delays due to the weather. Safety has to come first, for the staff and patients and for the people delivering the vaccines. Over 1000 scheduled deliveries have already been made, and the remaining are ready to go as soon as roads are safe and practices are able to reopen and receive the deliveries. There are other deliveries scheduled for the days ahead, and practices are aware of when they are expecting to receive their initial doses of the vaccine. Not all practices will be commencing the rollout on Monday; some will be commencing on each day as we go through the week.
Australia made a decision in consultation with general practices across the country to invite all accredited general practices to participate in the national vaccination program, as is the case with our national immunisation program and with our annual influenza vaccination program. This is the way we do vaccinations in Australia and deliver vaccinations to the majority of the people of our country. The alternative would have been to exclude patients from being able to see their regular GPs, and this was not supported by the Australian Medical Association, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, or the Australian Government. We wanted people to have the opportunity, wherever possible, to receive the vaccine from their own General Practice. The Government had initially hoped that at least 2000 practices would participate, and we are delighted that contrary to some reports, this has actually grown to over 4000 practices that have applied, been approved and accepted participation in the national rollout. The acceptance rate among practices which applied has been an extraordinary 98 per cent. I thank my GP colleagues across the country for your personal commitment to the vaccine rollout.
The Prime Minister and the Minister of Health met on Friday with the leaders of the AMA, the RACGP and other peak general practice organisations and advised that the Government will be distributing approximately 200,000 doses to general practices in the coming week and additional 50,000 doses to general practice respiratory clinics. This number will rise to 400,000 doses a week to over 4000 general practices as they come online over the coming month. All practices have been advised about their initial 12 weeks' allocation of vaccine so they can start to book in their patients for any time within that period. The method of booking is a matter for each practice, and all have been invited to be listed on the national vaccination information and location service according to their preference. Phase 1A of the vaccine rollout continues with the vaccination of the residents and staff of residential aged care facilities and disability care facilities across the country, as well as our frontline quarantine border force and healthcare workforces. We expect Phase 1A to continue for another six to eight weeks until all the people in this group have received the two doses of the Pfizer vaccine. In the meantime, while waiting for the COVID-19 vaccine, you may also like to start planning for your annual influenza vaccine. Over the coming month, the flu shots will start to also become available, but it's important to allow a 14-day gap, as recommended by the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation, between receiving the COVID vaccine and receiving the influenza vaccine. It doesn't matter which order you receive the two vaccines in, but it is important you don't receive them at the same time.
Tomorrow is an important day in the history of the pandemic in Australia. Our nation's general practices have stepped up in very large numbers to support the members of their local communities. I thank my fellow GPs, the general practitioners of Australia, our practice nurses, our Aboriginal health workers and everyone working in the general practices and other sites where these vaccines will become available. As I said last week, please do not panic. Please be patient and calm and polite when seeking to make a booking for the vaccine. The wonderful people working as receptionists and practice managers in our nation's medical centres also deserve our thanks and our respect for their contributions during the vaccine rollout. Clinics are experiencing a high volume of calls at the moment, so please use the online appointments where these are available. If you are not avail- able to make an appointment, please check back in a week or when the clinic advises, when additional appointments may be available.
I know there is a lot of anxiety in our community about the vaccines and in general about the COVID-19 pandemic. The mental health impacts of the tragedy and losses and disruptions caused by the pandemic will be with us for a long time. The mental health resources that have been available to you throughout the pandemic remain available to you. If you feel you need to speak to someone, please reach out to Beyond Blue, Lifeline and the other service providers, or to your GP. I am happy to take questions. We'll start with questions in the room.
QUESTION:
Professor Kidd, you mentioned that some of the deliveries to New South Wales will be delayed. Are you able to indicate just how many might be affected, and is it only going to be in these initial few days when there are floodwaters blocking roads, or could this delay extend further into the rollout?
MICHAEL KIDD:
Thanks, Clare. So the question is about are the delays in the vaccine rollout in New South Wales affected by the flooding. Obviously, we have to wait and see what happens with the weather over the coming days until we know when those vaccines are going to be able to be delivered. Some of the practices themselves have had to close as a result of the flooding and severe weather conditions. I can't tell you the exact number which have been affected at this time.
QUESTION:
Are you disappointed personally that some GP clinics will only have 50 doses for this initial phase of the rollout?
MICHAEL KIDD:
Thank you. So, the question is am I disappointed personally about some general practices only having 50 doses a week during the initial phases. At the moment, we are restricted with the number of vaccines that we have available in the country. As you know, until the CSL facility comes online, we're dependent on the shipments which have arrived from overseas. And as you will also be aware, there has been some delay in those shipments being able to be sent through to Australia. So at the moment we're rolling out the vaccines that we have available to practices right across the country. It means that some practices, yes, will only receive 50 doses a week over the coming few weeks, but those practices will be able to administer those doses to the people who most need them in their local communities. So I'm very pleased that despite the disruptions in shipments, we've still got these vaccinations occurring and, very importantly, that we have an equitable distribution of vaccines right across the country to cities, to country towns, to rural and remote areas, right across the country, meaning that the people who most need the vaccines are not missing out.
QUESTION:
Professor Kidd, to follow up on Clare's question if I can, you said not all practices had received their [indistinct]… do you know how many still are waiting for there first week's shipment? And is it just GP practices or is it respiratory clinics as well [indistinct]…
MICHAEL KIDD:
So, there's well over 1000 practices which will be participating in the rollout from Monday. But some, as I said, will be starting to come on Monday; some are scheduled to start on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. This is happening sequentially across the country. So those which are due to receive their vaccines to commence on Monday, the vast majority have received them. Those which haven't have been those which have been affected by the serious weather circumstances. Others which will be starting the vaccine progressively during the week will be receiving doses of the vaccine from Monday. There's a very significant number of vaccines going out tomorrow to many of those practices.
QUESTION:
Do you have any idea how many doses and how many GP clinics have been affected by the floodwaters and what sort of areas they're in?
MICHAEL KIDD:
So, the question is about the number of doses and the number of clinics affected by the floodwaters. No, I'm sorry, I don't have the specific details about the absolute number. As you know, the weather circumstances have been quite widespread, especially across the coast in New South Wales.
QUESTION:
Professor, this morning Professor Murphy made some comments about the [indistinct]… hotel quarantine for Australians returning home eventually later this year, ones who have been vaccinated overseas. When the AHPPC makes a decision on that, will the state governments have to follow what the AHPPC does on that, or will it be up to them to make their own decisions? And how would we decide which vaccines we approved for that? Would it be just ones approved by the TGA or could we see other vaccines [indistinct]… skip quarantine?
MICHAEL KIDD:
Thank you. So, you'll have to remind me if I miss part of that question. So, the question is about what happens with quarantine, particularly as people are getting vaccinated overseas. Will there be specific vaccines which may be accepted or not? What will the AHPPC be doing, and what will the states and territories be doing? So, obviously, this is an ongoing discussion about what happens as we see vaccinations rolling out across the world. Yes, we have had tens of millions of people who have received at least a first dose of one of the COVID-19 vaccines in countries in various countries around the world, but there obviously are still billions and billions of people who have not received a first dose, including the vast majority of people in our own country at this time. So this is something which will be worked out progressively over time as we see what happens with the vaccines, as we see the evidence of how effective individual vaccines are. Not all the vaccines being used overseas have yet been assessed or may not even be assessed by the Therapeutic Goods Administration here in Australia. So I think it's a progressive issue that we're just going to have to watch. The Australian Health Protection Principal Committee continues to monitor this very closely and obviously is providing advice to states and territories through the National Cabinet.
QUESTION:
[Indistinct]… sorry, could I just follow up on that, Professor Kidd? When is the rough timeframe that you might expect that there might be a possibility of [indistinct] home quarantine [indistinct]… talking about [indistinct]?
MICHAEL KIDD:
So the question is what's the rough timeframe for home quarantine. I can't give you a precise answer at the moment. What we have to be doing at the moment is focusing on protecting the people in Australia and making the vaccine available as widely as we can. Now, as we know, we're going to be rolling out this vaccine throughout 2021 through the different phases of the population. Until we have vaccinated the majority of people in Australia and everyone who wishes to receive the vaccine, we'll still have people who are at risk if we have COVID-19 and community transmission occurring in Australia.
QUESTION:
Picking up on what you set about ramping up to 400,000 doses allocated [audio skip] 4000 or so GPs in Phase 1B, given the Government's goal of vaccinating 6 million people by early May, that 400,000 a week, even with a few extra hundred thousand in the Commonwealth clinics, plus whatever happens in Phase 1A, is not really going to get close to 6 million in the space of about six weeks. Is that there for a minimum, or how are you- is that 6 million not on track anymore?
MICHAEL KIDD:
So, the question is is the plans to vaccinate the 6 million people in Phase 1B on track. The answer is yes, they are, and the reason for this is we're not just running the vaccines through general practices; we're also running the vaccines through state and territory hubs, and some of the hubs which have been established for Phase 1A may well pivot and then get involved in delivering Phase 1B as well. So we will have the vaccine being delivered in a multitude of venues where people can go and get their vaccines. I have a few people on the phone. Can I go to Patrick?
QUESTION:
Yes, hi. Two residents have died shortly after getting vaccinated at a Port Macquarie nursing home. What is the link, if any, between the vaccine and their deaths?
MICHAEL KIDD:
Thanks, Patrick. I'm not sure if everyone could hear the question, but the question is about two residents who have died in a nursing home after having received the vaccine. So, what happens with any deaths which occur in people who've received the vaccine, those deaths are reported to the Therapeutic Goods Administration, as indeed are every side effect or potential side effect following people receiving vaccines. And Therapeutic Goods Administration conducts an investigation or evaluation into those cases. The advice I've received is- from the Therapeutic Goods Administration, is that in those particular cases there was no link between the vaccine and those people, very sadly, passing away. Patrick, did you have a second question?
QUESTION:
Yes, when we can we expect TGA approval of the Melbourne-made vaccine?
MICHAEL KIDD:
Thank you. So, I addressed that partly in the forward comments. We're expecting announcements from the Therapeutic Goods Administration about the locally produced vaccine in the coming few days. I also have on the phone Samantha.
Maybe I don't. No, do I have anyone else on the phone? Okay. Back to the room.
QUESTION:
I've got one more question.
MICHAEL KIDD:
Please.
QUESTION:
On CSL, do you know how many doses exactly they're expected to deliver next week? And on that, if this weather is expected to extend quite a few days, will that delay the deliver of those CSL doses into next week?
MICHAEL KIDD:
So, the question is around how many doses we are expecting to come out of the CSL facility, at least initially, and whether the weather may impact on delivery of those doses if and when they start to be distributed. So, we are expecting CSL very quickly to ramp up to a million doses a week and to have that released and pushed out. Over the coming week I can't give you accurate figures. Whether the weather conditions will delay some of the delivery of some of those doses once they become available, we don't know. We just got to wait and see what happens with the weather.
QUESTION:
Weather permitting, though, how quickly after the TGA approves the locally made AstraZeneca will it be administered?
MICHAEL KIDD:
So, the advice that we have received is that once the TGA starts approving- or has approved the CSL-produced AstraZeneca vaccine, those doses can start being distributed. They are pretty well ready to go now. So using the appropriate cold chain mechanisms to make sure that the quality is not being impaired and rolling them out in a safe and appropriate way.
QUESTION:
Professor, week four of the vaccine rollout last week was the first week that people would be getting second doses. Are you able to confirm that everyone that was vaccinated in week one has had their second dose?
MICHAEL KIDD:
So, certainly if they- sorry, the question is has everyone who received their first dose in week one received their second dose in week four. Certainly, the plan has been that people receive their vaccine within about three weeks of the first dose. There can be some leeway in that; at the moment I don't have advice on whether everyone who received a vaccine in week one has received the second dose in week four. If they haven't then those doses should be administered over the coming week.
QUESTION:
Assuming that they have, does that mean they'll be able to look at their immunisation record on the myGov website, and it will then effectively count as proof of vaccination going forward?
MICHAEL KIDD:
So, will those people be able to look at their immunisation record on the website? The answer is yes. So as people are receiving their vaccines, those details are being uploaded to the Australian immunisation register, and if you have a My Health Record, that connects across to provide those details in your My Health Record as well. It also appears on the Medicare app, which many people have on their phones. So once those details have been uploaded and transferred to those various platforms, people will have a record of having received two doses of the vaccine.
QUESTION:
Can I just clarify one thing? 1B, do you think that it will be delayed at all, or do you expect it to hit its targets as initially planned?
MICHAEL KIDD:
Yep. So, at the moment we are expecting to hit the targets for Phase 1B, and the reason we're very confident about this is because we have so many additional sites coming on over the next few weeks, with well over 4500 general practices, over 100 general practice respiratory clinics, which can do large numbers of vaccinations each day, Aboriginal medical services right across the country, in addition to the state and territory hubs. So we have a lot of places where people are going to get the vaccine
QUESTION:
And supply? You don't expect in the longer term that you'll have the supply issue?
MICHAEL KIDD:
Yep. A question about continuing supply. As long as the CSL facility comes online, and we're able to get those vaccines, and we are no longer dependent on the deliveries from overseas, then that supply will allow us to continue to roll out the vaccine to those people. Last question?
QUESTION:
[Indistinct]… what role, if any, do you see for the Australian Government to help stranded Australians overseas to be vaccinated? Is there a role for the Australian Government in doing [indistinct]…
MICHAEL KIDD:
So, question about whether the Australian Government will be able to assist people who are overseas, outside of Australia, to receive the vaccine. So, what we're doing in Australia as we are vaccinating every person who is in Australia. That includes people who are not Australian citizens, people who are not permanent residents of Australia. Every single person who is in Australia is eligible to receive the vaccine. That's because it's part of a public health measure; it is important that we vaccinate everybody and offer that protection. We protect individuals. We also protect everybody in the country. We hope that other countries will be doing the same, and that will allow Australians who are in other countries to receive vaccines as well. Thank you very much everybody, and a huge thanks to our interpreters. Thank you.
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