Australians over the age of 50 will not be able to get a Pfizer vaccine until the end of the year in a significant reset of the country’s vaccine rollout, while national cabinet has also agreed on travel restrictions for people arriving from India.
Under the new vaccine plan, people over 50 will get access to an AstraZeneca vaccination sooner than planned, while the Pfizer vaccine will be prioritised for younger critical workers and vulnerable aged care residents yet to be immunised.
Monash Medical Centre pharmacists Nicole Dirnbauer (left) and Sigourney Szelag take Pfizer vials from an ultra-cold freezer.Credit:Meredith O’Shea
Arrivals from India will be cut by 30 per cent and travellers from a swath of other high-risk countries face similar restrictions to stem the growing number of cases in hotel quarantine, while strict limits will also be placed on people travelling to countries with large outbreaks.
“These are difficult decisions we’ve had to make but the increasing risk we’ve seen from some countries, we believe necessitates managing that risk in the best way possible,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison said following the national cabinet meeting on Thursday afternoon.
Aged and disability care workers, critical workers, healthcare staff and others in phases 1a and 1b will be able to receive Pfizer vaccines through state hubs and Commonwealth respiratory clinics as the state-run centres start expanding to accommodate the thousands of high-risk people who need to be immunised.
India’s COVID-19 outbreak has exploded in the past two months and this week the country recorded a grim new world record – 312,731 new infections in a 24-hour period.
Victoria will segregate Indian arrivals from other returned international travellers and subject them to more stringent infection control measures at the urging of its public health officials.
Such is the concern about the catastrophic epidemic now unfolding in India, fuelled by the emergence of new, mutant strains of the virus, that in advance of Thursday’s national cabinet meeting Victoria supported an immediate ban on all travellers from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
There are currently 19 active COVID-19 cases in Victoria, all in hotel quarantine. Most of Victoria’s active cases, all housed inside the Flinders Street Holiday Inn, are from India and Pakistan. All of those quarantine patients have what epidemiologists call “variants of concern” of the virus.
The Prime Minister said people returning from India now make up 40 per cent of all cases in quarantine nationally.
Almost 1.8 million doses of the vaccine had been administered across the country as of Wednesday evening. In aged and disability care, almost 120,000 have received first doses and a further 69,000 were now fully vaccinated.
Despite 318,000 aged and disability care workers being included in phase 1a of the Commonwealth COVID-19 vaccine rollout strategy, just 36,000 have been immunised so far.
Aged care residents will continue to get the Pfizer vaccine, and the rest of the available Pfizer doses will go to critical workers including people in disability and aged care.
In response to a question on notice to federal Parliament’s COVID-19 committee, the Department of Health said 146 of the 170 outbreaks in Victorian aged care facilities last year came from infections in aged care workers.
Committee chair, Labor Senator Katy Gallagher, said it was staggering that the federal government had not worked more urgently to complete vaccinations for care workers.
“Scott Morrison and his government totally mismanaged the aged care outbreak last year and now risk further outbreaks because of their botched vaccine rollout,” she said.
From May 3, people over the age of 50 will be able to get vaccinated with AstraZeneca in state-run hubs and Commonwealth respiratory clinics, but for now those over 50 wanting Pfizer will have to wait as those vaccines are focused on the critical workers and vulnerable elderly in phases 1a and 1b.
GP clinics in turn will receive more AstraZeneca doses, and from May 17 anyone over 50 who wants one of those vaccines will be able to start getting immunised.
A coronavirus patient wearing an oxygen mask waits inside an auto rickshaw to be admitted to a dedicated COVID-19 government hospital in Ahmedabad, India, on Saturday.Credit:AP
“At this stage we will not be making Pfizer available to those 50 and over,” Department of Health secretary Professor Brendan Murphy said. “With a few exceptions, Pfizer is now restricted to those under 50 until we get more Pfizer supplies later in the year.”
Professor Murphy said Australia could not be complacent about the risk of a COVID-19 outbreak.
“We are in, still, a very dangerous world,” he said. “Clearly we have to encourage Australians to get vaccinated.”
India is just the first country to be placed on Australia’s list of high risk countries, as Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly works with Border Force to add other countries with serious outbreaks in the coming week.
Mr Morrison said it would be similar but not identical to the UK’s “red list” – which bans citizens from travelling to or from 40 countries including Brazil and South Africa.
People who have been in high-risk countries in the fortnight before returning to Australia will have to return a negative test for COVID-19 in the 72 hours before arriving, Mr Morrison said. Direct flights into Australia will be reduced by 30 per cent. He said that would allow more Australians coming from lower risk countries to return.
From Friday authorised officers will ask all international arrivals at Melbourne Airport whether they have been on the subcontinent in the past 14 days. Anyone who has will be immediately separated from other travellers and transported on a dedicated bus to a quarantine hotel.
Hotel managers will be given advance warning of any residents arriving from high-risk countries and air filters will be placed in their rooms for additional infection control.
Secretary of the Department of Health Professor Brendan Murphy, Chief Medical Officer Professor Paul Kelly, Health Minister Greg Hunt and Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced the changes on Thursday.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
Travellers from the subcontinent will also be given fast-track check-ins to reduce the risk of them coming into contact with other people in hotel foyers and common areas.
To provide an air filter in every room with a high risk guest, the Victorian government will need to source more high efficiency particulate air purifiers.
The additional steps were recommended by Victoria’s trio of deputy chief health officers advising the state’s hotel quarantine program and agreed to on Thursday by the agency responsible for running it, COVID-19 Quarantine Victoria.
Federation of Indian Associations of Victoria president Sury Soni said he supported the reduction in flights given the increasing coronavirus cases in India.
But he said there was now concern that relatives and friends would be stuck in limbo in bigger cities where coronavirus outbreaks were greatest for longer.
Mr Soni said he wanted the federal government to allow the parents of Indian-Australians to fly to Australia in the next six months to afford them greater protection.
“We are all concerned about our parents and family. Somebody getting infected is not a strong enough reason for us to travel, [but] we are willing for there to be a longer quarantine for parents to come back,” Mr Soni said.
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Rachel Clun is a federal political reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, covering health.
Chip Le Grand is The Age’s chief reporter. He writes about crime, sport and national affairs, with a particular focus on Melbourne.
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