The Hon. Greg Hunt MP
Minister for Health and Aged Care
TRANSCRIPT
16 July 2021
INTERVIEW WITH RUSSEL HOWCROFT AND ROSS STEVENSON
3AW BREAKFAST
E&OE…
Topics: COVID-19 vaccination roll out.
ROSS STEVENSON:
Greg Hunt is the Federal Health Minister. Minister, good morning to you.
GREG HUNT:
And good morning.
ROSS STEVENSON:
We have three members of our team who are in their 30s and one who is in her 20s. What’s your advice to them about vaccination?
GREG HUNT:
So, the first thing is, you know, for now obviously it’s stay at home and be tested if you, if you have symptoms.
For vaccination we’ve had over 900,000 under 40s that have been vaccinated so far, and that’s in relation to those that are in the high risk with regards to either their work or their personal circumstances.
ROSS STEVENSON:
Minister, I don’t wish to be rude, but it was a fairly simple question. Three of them are in their 30s, one is in her 20s, what’s the message for them with vaccination.
GREG HUNT:
So the message for, for those people with vaccination is that when it opens for them and the advice that we have is September, October will be the period, then we’d encourage every Australian to come forward to be vaccinated.
RUSSEL HOWCROFT:
So, Minister, we’ve obviously we have AstraZeneca.
ROSS STEVENSON:
I think you need to turn your mic on old chap.
RUSSEL HOWCROFT:
Okay. My apology. We’ve got AstraZeneca, we’ve got Pfizer. But of course, the Moderna is on its way.
GREG HUNT:
Correct.
RUSSEL HOWCROFT:
What’s the plans there?
GREG HUNT:
So Modern should arrive, the first million is due in September and then we’ll have three million a month in October, November, December. That will be made available as, as well, and that’s planned to be through a mixture of GP’s and pharmacies around the, around the country.
So, to step back, where are we at now? We’ve had over 9.5 million vaccinations I think, 9.6 million vaccinations as of yesterday. We are progressively moving down the age bracket, which is in line with the medical advice, but also the international experience because the risk is highest with the older Australians.
And so as we move through those groups will expand out, the age groups. We’re looking, as General Frewen has said, for September to October for the opening for the under 40s, and if we have an opportunity to do it earlier, obviously we will.
But at this stage the over 70s, we’ve had over 74 per cent of over 70s, and over 66 per cent of over, of all over 60s come forward. So they’re the most vulnerable.
ROSS STEVENSON:
Minister, let me ask you, let me ask you a question about Pfizer.
GREG HUNT:
Yep.
ROSS STEVENSON:
It was self-evident from about the middle of last year that our vaccination rollout was trickle slow and just inadequate.
GREG HUNT:
There, there was no vaccination anywhere in the world in the middle of last year.
ROSS STEVENSON:
Would you, presumably, have approached Pfizer about getting our allocation earlier? I don’t know, would you do that by phone? Or by email? And they presumably just say, no.
GREG HUNT:
No, that’s, that’s incorrect, with respect.
We have been able to bring forward significant numbers of Pfizer. And so to put all this in context, we’ve had six contracts in place. We’ve got over 53 million AstraZeneca; 51 million Novavax; we have 40 million Pfizer; 25 million of the international COVAX.
ROSS STEVENSON:
When you say we have it, we have an order for it, we don’t actually have it.
GREG HUNT:
Well, the AstraZeneca we have in large volumes; the Pfizer will start to arrive at approximately a million a week from next week.
And then of course, we had the University of Queensland as well. So all of those, the Pfizer, yes, we have been able to, to bring that, to bring that forward.
ROSS STEVENSON:
Sorry, I thought the University of Queensland one has been, has been abandoned, hasn’t it?
GREG HUNT:
Correct. And the point we made was nobody knew which vaccines would be successful. We put in place agreements- six different agreements across five different vaccines.
With Pfizer there’s 40 million doses that will be delivered this year; with AstraZeneca we have access to 50 million doses.
And importantly, what’s occurring now is that that acceleration at which there are 162,000 on yesterday’s figures, or the equivalent of over two million a day (INAUDIBLE) the comparison and in contrast.
RUSSEL HOWCROFT:
Minister, a quick one. Public sentiment. So are you now in a position where there’s enough demand? So, okay, you’ve got to get the supply right. But clearly you need public demand.
You’ve got your campaigns going; we’ve got people being locked down, hopefully what the lockdown is doing is actually stimulating demand. Have you got data on public sentiment?
GREG HUNT:
Yes, we do. So we’re seeing, obviously, very high demand coming through the door at the moment, and thanking everybody for doing that and urging everybody to come forward.
The public figures, which have been well discussed, about 70 per cent have indicated an absolute or very, very clear commitment to be vaccinated. And then the next 30 per cent, we work as hard as possible to get as many as possible to come forward for vaccination.
One of the things there is that, as people look around and they see other Australians being vaccinated, at this point, as I say, over 9.6 million vaccinations, then that provides confidence and that builds on that confidence.
And so we want to work together with the public, the media, the medical profession, all of whom have been very supportive, to provide that confidence and to indicate that there’s the opportunity for every Australian vaccinated. But also the fact that this is something that each of them can do to protect themselves and everybody else.
ROSS STEVENSON:
Minister, we thank you for your time. Greg Hunt, Federal Health Minister.
-ENDS-