Katie Allen (Higgins, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health and Aged Care. Will the minister please update the House on how Australia's vaccine rollout and national plan will assist small businesses and employees to return to work?

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Higgins for her question and her work as a national leading paediatrician prior to coming to this place. We know that in the last 24 hours over 560,000 cases have been diagnosed as part of the global pandemic, and 8½ thousand people have lost their lives. These numbers continue every day at agonising global levels. Australia has been spared so much of it, but we have not been spared absolutely, as we see so clearly in New South Wales, Victoria and the ACT at the moment. But one of the things which are fundamental is what's occurring at the moment with vaccinations. We've seen, as the Prime Minister has said, over 334,000 vaccinations in the last 24 hours alone, the highest rate for a Tuesday, which always leads to a very good outcome for the rest of the week. We're now at 19.7 million and, as the PM says, we are today expected to pass 20 million doses that have been delivered. Very significantly, that's 1.95 million—almost two million—Australians, or almost 10 per cent of the eligible population, in one week who have come forward for either a first or a second dose, a rate which is higher than anything achieved by either the United States or the UK at the peak of their rollouts. To do that, we're drawing upon the entire national network—our GPs, our pharmacies, our Commonwealth vaccination clinics. In particular, I want to thank and acknowledge our Aboriginal medical services and our state vaccine clinics.

Very importantly, as we do this we see that we are on the cusp of achieving 60 per cent first-dose coverage for the entire nation. That should occur probably during question time today—a 60 per cent first-dose rate for the entire nation—and in the coming 48 hours we are likely to pass 80 per cent for everybody over the age of 50. For the country as a whole, what matters about the 60 per cent first-dose rate is that it means we are now approximately 2.2 million Australians from the 70 per cent level and approximately 4.2 million Australians from the 80 per cent level.

These number are not that far away, and at the pace of almost two million vaccinations a week, you can see how close we are, you can see that it's there, you can see that we're on the cusp of achieving the levels which will allow the national plan to be delivered to help create and save jobs. I welcome the comments of both the New South Wales and Victorian premiers recommitting to that plan to save jobs and save lives. (Time expired)