Australia's COVID-19 vaccine rollout program continues to significantly pick up pace - and we have now administered more than 13.7 million doses across the country.
The number of doses administered on a daily basis is rising all the time, and we managed a record 240,000 on5 August - up about 20,000 on our previous daily record.
Last week, more than 1.3 million vaccine doses were administered at primary care sites and state and territory facilities.
More than two-thirds of the population aged 50 and over have now had a first dose, a figure that rises to approximately 75 per cent for people aged 60 and over - and to more than 80 per cent for people aged 70 and over.
Last week, Lieutenant-General Frewen released the National COVID Vaccine Campaign Plan that lays out a clear framework for how we will roll out vaccines to as many people as possible, as quickly as possible.
With the release of the Doherty Institute modelling, we know just how important it is for us to fully vaccinate at least 70 to 80 per cent of our eligible population, which will enable us to ease restrictions with less risk of lockdowns having to be imposed.
The three key factors in distributing the vaccines are supply, distribution. and people's willingness to be vaccinated.
On all three fronts, we're well positioned to ensure all eligible people will have had an opportunity for have had a first vaccine dose by the end of the year.
Our supply is increasing, and we're opening up more vaccination sites to increase flexibility and make the process as convenient as possible. We also know the vast majority of Australians intend to be vaccinated.
Supplying and producing the vaccine
The ability to manufacture vaccines onshore has been essential to the progress of our rollout and CSL has now manufactured and supplied 14.9 doses of vaccine for use in Australia.
Last week, 1 million doses of Pfizer and over 800,000 doses of AstraZeneca were released for distribution.
Over the coming days, the TGA will conduct sample testing of over 1 million doses of Pfizer vaccine, along with over 1 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine produced onshore by CSL, prior to releasing the vaccines for distribution.
Distributing the vaccine
With support from our Distribution Partners DHL and Linfox, more than 1.8 million vaccine doses were delivered across Australia to metropolitan, rural and remote locations, along with 3,388 deliveries of consumables.
- Ordering and Delivery. 99.9% of vaccine orders were completed last week with one order of Pfizer and three orders of AstraZeneca to be finalised today.
- Australia's assistance to the Pacific. This week another 120,000 doses were made available for distribution to the Pacific, with more than 1.4 million doses now provided to DFAT. This will help our friends across the Pacific, including Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste, Fiji, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu.
Administering the vaccine
This week, 1,329.253 doses were administered across the country, taking the total number of doses administered 13,723,146 million. It took 43 days to reach our first million doses of vaccine administered and 6 days for the most recent.
- Total sites. This week we had a total of 5,165 general practices, 136 Commonwealth Vaccination Clinics, 676 Pharmacies and 158 Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services delivering vaccines, along with 627 state and territory sites, taking the total number of vaccination sites across the country to 6762. In the coming week, we will have 83 additional general practices administering AstraZeneca.
- Aged Care. With our vaccine workforce service providers, we continue to focus on those most at risk in our residential aged care facilities, and have now completed first and second dose visits to all 2,566 facilities.
- Disability. We continue to ramp up our visits to disability residents with complex needs who require in-reach services. More than 17311 people with a disability in a residential setting have now received at least one dose of vaccine.
About the Vaccine Operations Centre
