Trent Zimmerman (North Sydney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm also delighted to ask a question of the Minister for Health and Aged Care. Will the minister please provide an update to the House on how the Morrison government is responding to the latest COVID-19 variant, omicron, in order to protect the lives and livelihoods of Australians?

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

I want to thank the member for North Sydney. He's also been a great advocate for action in relation to HIV. Together we launched the PrEP, the pre-exposure prophylaxis, with regard to another pandemic, and that has helped save lives and protect lives in Australia. We did that along with many others on all sides who have been advocates for action.

As for this pandemic, as I was saying, when we look around the world we see over 630,000 cases of COVID-19 in the last 24 hours and, agonisingly, over 8,200 lives lost in just the last 24 hours. Against that background, what has occurred in Australia remains something to which almost every nation in the world would aspire: one of the lowest rates of loss of life in the world, one of the highest rates of vaccination in the world, and one of the strongest economic recoveries over the course of the pandemic in the world. These things have come from the actions which the government has taken.

In particular, when we look at the vaccination rate, we now have 39.3 million vaccinations. Ninety-two and a half per cent of Australians aged 16 and over have had a first vaccination, and 87 per cent of Australian aged 16 and over have had a second vaccination. Very significantly, as of today, we have now reached an extraordinary 99 per cent of all Australians over the age of 60. It had been 99 per cent of those over the age of 70; now it's those over the age of 60. So those who are most vulnerable are most protected. That is a level to which the whole world would aspire: 99 per cent of over-60s. We've done it in our way, on our watch, in our time. We've done it on a voluntary basis, but we've done it through advocacy and support. These things have protected Australians.

In terms of the omicron variant, the actions that we took on the weekend—which the Prime Minister authorised with decisions which were immediate—were to stop the flights from southern Africa, to ensure that there was quarantine in place, and to work with the states to make sure that the 72-hour provision was in place. That provision was endorsed and strengthened for the next two weeks by national cabinet only yesterday, under the Prime Minister's chairmanship. These are the actions that have protected Australia, are protecting Australia, will continue to protect Australia and will save lives and protect lives.