The Hon. Greg Hunt MP
Minister for Health and Aged Care
TRANSCRIPT
28 June 2021
INTERVIEW WITH STEVE PRICE
AUSTRALIA TODAY
E&OE…
Topics: COVID-19 situation in Australia
STEVE PRICE:
There will be an emergency meeting of the Cabinet today, and the National Cabinet will be convened if the Prime Minister, who is still quarantined at the Lodge, can pull that together.
Federal Health Minister, Greg Hunt, will be involved in all of those meetings. He’s been good enough to join us. Thanks for your time.
GREG HUNT:
And good morning, Steve.
STEVE PRICE:
What’s your assessment on how much at risk Australia is today? Is this as bad as we’ve seen it since the dark days of last winter?
GREG HUNT:
Look, I think that we know how to manage it. It is obviously a concern. What we’re seeing in New South Wales is an outbreak of a more contagious variant. But my expectation, from having talked with our health officials, is that New South Wales will be able to contain and manage this.
They have, potentially, the best contact tracing system in the world, or the equal of any. The Northern Territory, we’re particularly focused on that, but they are running to ground all of the contacts from the mine site.
Our deep concern has always been the cases potentially getting into Indigenous communities. We haven’t had any cases recorded in remote Indigenous communities to date, and at this stage, the NT is tracing and tracking everybody. But the next couple of days are absolutely critical on keeping it out of the Indigenous communities.
STEVE PRICE:
Are you sick and tired of the leaks coming out of quarantine? I mean, the latest lockdown in New South Wales is going to cost the economy billions of dollars. You’ve got millions of people, you know, virtually locked down, although it’s not as tough as Victoria.
And it all comes because a driver allegedly doesn’t have a mask on, not vaccinated, driving around an air crew from a FedEx jet, and that is the zero case, ground zero, and it gets out again.
When are we going to learn that we have to be a lot tougher on all of this movement of people when they get off planes that come in from overseas?
GREG HUNT:
So there are very strict rules.
STEVE PRICE:
Well, it didn’t work.
GREG HUNT:
This case is being investigated by the police as to whether or not there’d been any breaches of transport orders. I think Deputy Commissioner Worboys spoke to that last week, so I won’t speculate on that.
But the message is very clear that in every state and every territory, in every jurisdiction, wherever there are people coming in there are risks and therefore we have to have the strongest system in the world.
Now, no country is immune, and I think it’s very important to say that. The UK, over the weekend, has had days of 18,000, 15,000 cases, just as an example. So, nobody is immune, but we have done better than almost anybody else.
As at this point in time over 2.1 million lives lost officially this year worldwide, none from anybody who’s caught COVID in Australia. But we’re, we’re just eternally vigilant. And this pandemic, it’s hard for everybody, it’s hard for the whole world. We are part of that world and so, as long as we’re in connection with the world there are risks, but we just have to engage in continuous improvement on every front.
STEVE PRICE:
In hindsight, would it have been better to let the states handle the vaccine rollout, given that we’ve got so many troubles with it?
GREG HUNT:
The issue is, is very simple. It’s global supply and the conservative rules we have around AstraZeneca. We have an over 60, or a 60 and over recommendation in Australia, in the UK it’s 40 and over; in Korea 30; in Germany it’s 18 plus and so that is a more conservative view that has been taken on medical advice.
The difference here is we’re using the same network we ordinarily use, the GP network. But we have Pfizer building up, we have Moderna coming in, but the world has limited supplies and they’ve prioritise the international ones to places of mass death. And that is understandable, but it’s something we have to work with.
Our domestic supply is AstraZeneca, but that is, as we speak we’ve had over 4.6 million doses of AstraZeneca delivered in Australia, and that’s roughly 4.15 first doses, and roughly 450,000 second doses. And so without that we would have really struggled with it.
We’re now, as I say, at 4.6 million AstraZeneca, but over 7.3 million doses and increasing significantly. It’ll be over three quarters of a million doses in the last week alone.
STEVE PRICE:
If I’m 58, why can’t I have Astra if I want it?
GREG HUNT:
So we, we always follow the medical.
STEVE PRICE:
I understand, I understand why you’ve done it but, I mean, it is extremely conservative. Pfizer supplies are now stretched and I know people who are unable to get an appointment to get a vaccination of any sort for up to two weeks, three weeks, stretching out longer than that.
So if I’m a 58-year-old or a 59-year-old, surely I should be able to contact my GP and say: have you got any AstraZeneca? I want it.
GREG HUNT:
So our recommendation is that AstraZeneca is preferred for over 60s, or 60 and over; Pfizer for under 60; and that’s the strong clear advice.
STEVE PRICE:
But, does it have to be that black and white?
GREG HUNT:
Well, there has to be a recommendation, yes. And I understand the frustration that some may feel and I’m sort of deeply empathetic with that. But the alternative is for us not to be following that medical advice, and how is it that in a world of over two million lives lost, Australia hasn’t lost anybody who’s caught COVID and passed in Australia this year?
It’s because we’ve been lightning fast on following and implementing the medical advice, and that’s been the difference in Australia, we’ve got really strong systems. The border protection, although nobody’s immune, is as strong as any in the world, but then the other actions in terms of the medical advice.
So, I respect the different views, but you know, we’ve always followed the advice on all of the different vaccines, whether it’s the measles, mumps, rubella, whether it’s flu. And I understand there are some who may want to have different views, but that strong, clear, national regime is what’s protected us.
STEVE PRICE:
Singapore and Ireland, like us although much smaller but with a population roughly the size of Sydney’s 5.7 million, they’ll have two thirds of their residents had at least one jab of a vaccination with weeks; two thirds fully vaccinated by early August. Why are we so far behind?
GREG HUNT:
Well, I think what we’ve been doing is we’re working within the maximum supply that’s available internationally in terms of the Pfizer.
STEVE PRICE:
But how can Singapore, how can Singapore get to that level where we can’t?
GREG HUNT:
Well, I’ll have to let them speak for themselves. We have our domestic production, because we didn’t trust the international supply lines, and, you know, we’re doubling our Pfizer per week over the course of July, we’ll go from 300,000 to over 600,000.
And then what we’ll see is that acceleration with more than 32 million Pfizer for the remainder of the year and 10 million Moderna, plus the AstraZeneca.
So, you know, as, as we speak, with 28.5 per cent of the population, population that’s had first doses, but over 68 per cent, so more than two thirds of the over 70s, most at risk that have been vaccinated so far.
STEVE PRICE:
Should every driver of a vehicle that takes passengers have a vaccination before they’re allowed to drive?
GREG HUNT:
Well, we want every person associated with quarantine in Australia to, to be vaccinated. And it’s obviously something in the hands of all of the states and territories, and I know you’re specifically and reasonably referring to the New South Wales limousine driver, that one’s being investigated by the police as they say, so I’ll leave it to them as to whether there’s a breach of any transport order.
But clearly, we’ve had a more successful quarantine regime than virtually any other country. The success of that quarantine regime has (INAUDIBLE) high expectations-
STEVE PRICE:
But every outbreak has come from a leakage out of quarantine.
GREG HUNT:
Well, this is where we’re engaging with the world a touch, a breath, a surface, all of these things are a risk. And I’ve said this on numerous occasions to those people who demand elimination, the only way to guarantee elimination is to completely cut the nation off from the rest of the world.
This is the most significant pandemic the world has faced in a hundred years, and that’s because it’s a hellishly contagious disease. And a disease, you know, moves and we’ve been able to contain it better than virtually anybody else in the world, but we always have to recognise there are multiple rings of containment, borders, testing, tracing, distancing and vaccination and all of those things come together.
STEVE PRICE:
I think your Government’s done an outstanding, just finally, because I know how busy you are, I think your Government’s done an outstanding job in keeping COVID, where possible, out of the country.
But as we sit here right now today, at the end of June, we have a city of 5.7 million people in virtual lockdown; you’ve got the Northern Territory locked down; you’ve got WA locked down; you’ve got state borders everywhere bar Tasmania and Victoria shut; you’ve got school holidays where no one’s on school holidays.
We don’t seem, in 15 months, to advanced our position with COVID, and you’ve got to lay that, surely, Minister, at the feet, at the feet of those responsible for rolling out the vaccination. If we were all vaccinated, or more of us, we wouldn’t have half the country shut down with the billions and billions of lost productivity that we’re now staring at for the next month.
GREG HUNT:
Look, very sadly what we’ve seen in the US is, on average, 200 deaths a day for most of June. In the UK, 18,000 cases two days ago, 15,000 yesterday, so you need all of the different defences.
STEVE PRICE:
That doesn’t help the small businesses who, today, are falling over; losing their houses; their mortgages can’t be paid; there’s people without work; there’s no job keeper anymore, so all of the people in hospitality in New South Wales are expected this week and next week, at the very minimum, to have no salary.
GREG HUNT:
Federal disaster, federal disaster payments come in next week.
STEVE PRICE:
Only after a week of lockdown, though.
GREG HUNT:
Look, that’s correct. I know this is difficult. The presumption that we can be immune, although we have done an extraordinary job of being close to, to that, the presumption that we, we can be immune in the midst of the worst global pandemic in 100 years is not something we’ve ever pretended is the case.
We happen to have done it better than almost anybody else, but right now it’s hard, it’s tough, it’s difficult for people. But the whole world is going through this. It’s just that our challenges are far less and far more transient or temporary than the rest of the world.
But we’ll get through it. You know, we know how to do this. We happen to be doing it better than virtually anybody else in the world. But this is a disease not like anything we’ve witnessed in our lifetimes, it’s different to anything in a hundred years.
And, you know, this catastrophic loss of life worldwide, over two million this year, approaching four million officially and probably closer to ten million on the World Health Organisation’s estimates of lives lost. Yet, we have been mercifully spared the vast bulk of that, but not without pain.
And so we just have to fight through it. And we can do this, and we’ll get through it in Sydney in the coming days and weeks. And I’m also increasingly confident about the Northern Territory on the latest advice I have from the head of AUSMAT, the head of the National Critical Care and Trauma Response Centre, Len Notaras, just this morning.
So, difficult days, but always, you know, what’s, what’s stood us apart is our resilience in the last year and the fact that we’ve done it better than almost anybody else. So we’ll do it again.
STEVE PRICE:
Thanks for being so generous with your time. Thank you very much.
GREG HUNT:
Thanks, Steve.
STEVE PRICE:
Greg Hunt, the Federal Health Minister.
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