NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian and Health Minister Brad Hazzard look on as a NSW Health worker receives his COVID-19 vaccination at the Westmead Hospital.Credit:Getty
“This is the issue:we would like to know as soon as possible how many doses NSW is receiving,” Ms Berejiklian said. “Our teams are ready and willing to step up and increase our capacity,but we’ll just need to know exactly how many doses we’re getting beyond week four.”
After her public comments,Mr Hunt’s office said in a statement that he had a “constructive” conversation with Ms Berejiklian and had confirmed to her that NSW would get 80,000 doses of the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines in the next 10 days,subject to the state’s “confirmation of ability to distribute”.
Of those,14,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine will be sent to NSW in the next 24 hours,Mr Hunt’s office confirmed,but it did not identify how many doses would be the AstraZeneca version.
The Oxford University-AstraZeneca vaccine will be the one most NSW residents receive once it is rolled out en masse.
Ms Berejiklian said NSW had vaccinated 10,339 quarantine workers in the first week of the Pfizer rollout,but her government was unable to plan for the subsequent rollout of AstraZeneca,after 300,000 doses arrived in Australia on Sunday.
The Premier pressed the need for greater information,pointing to the complex logistical exercise involved in safely storing,refrigerating and distributing the vaccine,as well as ensuring staffing levels to administer jabs.