“We’ve got very significant quantities of Pfizer coming in — we’ve ordered 40 million doses, which are all expected to be delivered heavily back-ended towards the last quarter,” he told News Corp Australia. The global headquarters of Pfizer, in the small southwest Michigan city of Portage, is on track to supply 40 million vaccines to Australia from the three billion doses it is producing in 2021, News Corp Australia revealed on Saturday. GPS FRUSTRATED OVER JAB ROLLOUT Australian GPs are walking away from the nation’s COVID-19 vaccination rollout, “frustrated” at the lack of supply and challenges of managing constant changes to the program.Dr Karen Price, president of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP), said she was not sure whether media reports of 200 GPs leaving the program were correct, but she knew some had already left.The RACGP revealed in February this year that more than 4600 general practices had been approved to administer the vaccines. According to a statement released to the media on Friday by the Federal Department of Health, 4398 GPs were actually providing vaccination services.Dr Price told News Corp that doctors were frustrated by the load of having to “manage constant changes” to the vaccination program, as well as supply issues and negative media surrounding the safety of the vaccines.“The program has been frustrating and challenging because of supply issues and negative media and big success with COVID,” she said.She said Australia was not seeing the high infection rates and deaths that other countries were – and in these countries vaccination take-up, when offered, tended to be higher.“If we got infection rates like India we would have many more taking up the vaccine. Because the risk benefit ratio would change,” she said.Dr Price said it was vital Australians embraced the vaccination program and that governments supported doctors to increase uptake.“The vaccine program has to succeed – we need to vaccinate as many people as possible,” she said.It comes as Victoria is leading the nation’s COVID-19 vaccine race with 20,000 more people inoculated than in New South Wales.Victoria has vaccinated 334,259 people compared to just 314,613 in NSW but Australia’s biggest state is fast catching up through the opening of a mass vaccination clinic in Sydney.Queensland has vaccinated 178,372 people, South Australia 87,166, Tasmania 53,816, ACT 41,151, the Northern Territory 25,961 and Western Australia 139,289.These figures do not include the people vaccinated by GPs or those in aged care because these shots are being delivered by the Australian Government.The secret to Victoria’s success is it has made getting a vaccine as easy as possible with 30 state vaccination centres, some of which are walk-in clinics with no appointment needed.By contrast, NSW is requiring everyone who wants to attend its one mass vaccination centre at Sydney Olympic Park to make a booking through a sometimes difficult-to-use online system.Australia’s vaccine rollout is more than four million doses behind schedule and experts are concerned we are vulnerable to a virus outbreak.Lack of vaccine supply is no longer an issue, in fact we’re not using all the supply we have.There are now around 1.4 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines being delivered each week but only a third of them — 434,000 last week — made it into people’s arms.Experts are urging Australians aged over 50 not to put off their jab.People who wait for the Pfizer jab in October could be caught out if there is another outbreak when vaccine centres would be overwhelmed with demand.“Take the opportunity to now get vaccinated because there’s a reasonable chance that it will spread in Australia at some time, and when it spreads, then you might be able to get in the door for the queues,” Australian National University infectious diseases expert Professor Peter Collignon said.NED-3850-Vax-A-Nation-Booklet-BannerHe added other countries which had good control like Taiwan, Singapore, Japan and South Korea were facing new infection waves and “we’ve got winter coming” when the virus is more likely to spread.It takes up to two weeks for the vaccines to deliver a proper immune response so getting jabbed during an outbreak could be too late.“That is the tragedy of what’s happening in India at the moment, even if they can provide a lot of vaccine, it’s actually too late for many,” former health department chief and government adviser Jane Halton said.Ms Halton said to get the vaccine rollout on track the government needed sophisticated mass media advertisements and for it to be easier to get a jab.Another former health department chief professor Stephen Duckett described the vaccine rollout as a “train wreck”.COVID-19 Stats – Horizontal with Lazy LoadWhile surveys showed one in three Australians were thinking twice about getting a COVID jab, many were delaying because they thought there was a shortage of vaccine which is no longer the case. Others were worried about side effects from the AstraZeneca shot.“You have to say to people, we have enough vaccines now we’ve got enough doses, and if you need vaccination, you can get it,” he said.The government needed to reassure Australians that the blood clot risks from the AstraZeneca jab were tiny with just one person in a million likely to die, Ms Halton said.“You’ve got more chance of winning Lotto,” she said.NSW Health said in recent days the state government had administered more vaccinations than any other state.NED-3736-Vaccine-benefit-vs-harm“NSW Health has seen a fantastic demand for COVID-19 vaccinations at the newly opened Sydney Olympic Park Vaccination Centre, which is now regularly vaccinating more than 5000 people per day,” a spokesperson said.“The centre will begin to administer the AstraZeneca vaccine from Monday 24 May to people aged 50 years and over, further boosting the vaccination rollout in NSW.” “A mass vaccination centre will soon be established in Newcastle to serve the city’s large population and the people of the surrounding regions.”A spokesman for the Victorian state government said ”The moment more Victorians became eligible for the vaccine, we were ready”.NED-3614-Pfizer-Side-Effects“Victoria’s mass vaccination sites are easy to access – with a simple phone booking system and walk-ins – stripping away some of the barriers of uptake. It’s terrific to see other states now doing the same thing,” he said.The state is now taking bookings for people in priority groups eight under 50 to receive the Pfizer vaccine.People under 50 can call the booking hotline and get an appointment at a vaccination centre providing the Pfizer vaccine: coronavirus.vic.gov.au/who-can-get-vaccinated
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