ALLISON LANGDON:
Well, the vaccine rollout is today getting its biggest shake-up to date under sweeping new changes announced by the Prime Minister last night. Most significant, Australians under 40 can now get the AstraZeneca vaccine. Lieutenant General John Frewen heads the Federal Government's COVID vaccination task force and he joins us live from Canberra. Thanks for your time this morning. You've opened it up to millions more Aussies. Are you expecting a rush and are you equipped to deal with that?
JOHN FREWEN:
Yeah, hi, Ally. Yes, this is good news for all Australians that we can now provide access to more vaccines to more Australians. We've currently got more than 6200 places across the nation where people can go and access vaccines, so we've just got to make a few adjustments to the eligibility checker to make sure that those under 60 who would like to get AstraZeneca, with informed consent, can book in to do that, but then we'll be ready to receive them.
ALLISON LANGDON:
Alright. I mean, there were plenty of announcements last night, it certainly added to your work load, hasn't it? How quickly can we go from that- those announcements being made to actually seeing jabs in the arm if people want it?
JOHN FREWEN:
Yeah. Look, we'll be onto it as quickly as we can. And I really think people should be able to start making arrangements in the days ahead. And over the next couple of weeks, I hope to see the effect of these new policies.
ALLISON LANGDON:
Okay, within weeks. You've said that you won't roll out a vaccination ad campaign until you're confident in supply. When will that be?
JOHN FREWEN:
Yeah, look, the thing about the timing of the ad campaign really was around the supply of the Pfizer. We've got adequate supplies of AstraZeneca at the moment. I mean, we're producing AstraZeneca domestically here in Australia. So, look, I think we're really in a position now that just, in the next probably fortnight night or so, you'll start to see some of the new materials that will really encourage people to get out and get vaccinated. I mean, it really is an important pillar of how we're going to be able to live with COVID in the years ahead.
ALLISON LANGDON:
And I think in some ways that the lockdowns that we're seeing across multiple states at the moment has been a bit of a wake-up call for everyone, but there have been backflips on AstraZeneca. So are you confident that an ad campaign targeting- will target those under 40s and will actually make a difference?
JOHN FREWEN:
Yeah, I wouldn't portray the ATAGI rulings as backflips, Ally. What they've done is they've taken a very cautious approach to try to minimise any adverse effects at all. We've been in the very fortunate position of having very low rates of community transmission, but as the recent outbreaks in Victoria and now NSW, and also we're seeing cases in the Northern Territory, WA and other places, it's a reminder that the COVID virus isn't done with us yet. So we need to make risk-based judgements about giving people access to vaccines. And I think this is a very timely reminder that we're going to be living with COVID for a long time yet, and this is about giving people a chance to make informed choices, where they can understand the risk, you know, I think the very terrible risk of getting COVID or the risks of- balanced up against the risks of the getting vaccinated as quickly as they can.
ALLISON LANGDON:
We're going to be living with COVID for a long time because we don't have access to those vaccines at the moment. As a can-do kind of guy, how frustrating is that for you?
JOHN FREWEN:
Look, Ally, I think this is a global pandemic. A year or so ago, we weren't even sure whether there would be effective vaccines. We've been rolling out the vaccines since February. More than- well over 7 million doses have been administered in those few months since then. I think some great work has been going on here. Through the year now, I've released the figures that show the vaccine supply that we will have out to the end of the year and we're working with the states and territories now to make sure that we can really start to accelerate that rollout as we go. So I'm really optimistic that we will be able to give every Australian the chance to get vaccinated this year.
ALLISON LANGDON:
But Lieutenant General, I mean, Australia's rollout, we're ranked last amongst all OECD countries. That's embarrassing.
JOHN FREWEN:
Well, we've also- we're doing better than just about every other country in the way that we've managed community transmission, Ally. So we- you know, the health authorities have not authorised vaccines under emergency provisions. They've been very careful about the medical advice and those sorts of things. So we're in full flight now and we're going to be making sure that we get the vaccines rolled out as quickly as we can through the rest of this year.
ALLISON LANGDON:
Alright. Thank you so much for joining us this morning. We appreciate it.
JOHN FREWEN:
Thank you.
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