Vaccines are divided among states and territories on a per capita basis,and doses are separately given to primary care facilities such as GPs and pharmacies. Rather than getting a set amount each week,every state has a minimum and maximum amount of each vaccine they can request of each available vaccine from the federal government depending on their needs at the time.

Sometimes Pfizer might deliver more than expected. And then,for example,Tasmania might not order its maximum allocation. This means there are can be tens of thousands of spare doses,which can be redirected to states that need them.

Is that how NSW received extra doses?

Yes,and they’re not going to get more doses than other states or territories overall – they’ll probably end up getting fewer doses in future deliveries to make up the difference.

That’s because even though they are on top of the state’s weekly allocation,they count as part of the state’s overall share of vaccines over time.

Are we getting more than the 40 million Pfizer doses we ordered?

In short,no. The new COVID Taskforce,headed by Lieutenant General John Frewen,didn’t order the vaccines and hasn’t increased our vaccine orders. But what it can do,he says,is talk to companies such as Pfizer about potentially bringing forward deliveries.

“Late on Friday[July 23],Pfizer advised it would be able to provide additional doses in August and we have provided additional doses this week using the additional allocations in August to backfill allocations to GPs,” he says.

“We are always happy to work with the states and territories around the agreed allocation and delivery processes.”

That means some weeks Australia may receive well more than 1 million doses expected,but those doses will be subtracted from future deliveries.

Don’t we have a national stockpile of COVID vaccines?

As of Monday July 26,there wereabout 3 million doses of vaccines in storage in Australia.

But there’s no special federal warehouse keeping spare vaccines at this stage. About half of the doses are sitting in GP clinics,vaccination hubs and pharmacies around the country waiting to be put into arms,and the rest are in the warehouses of DHL and Linfox ready to be transported to their final destinations.

About 95 per cent of those unused doses are AstraZeneca – CSL has continued to produce that vaccine at a rate of roughly a million a week from their Melbourne facilities. It’s gone unused because,until recently,young people were encouraged to wait for Pfizer instead.

The expert medical advice on that vaccine has recently changed for people in western Sydney,and Prime Minister Scott Morrison has said tens of thousands of young people are now choosing to get AstraZeneca.

“It has saved the lives of young people all around the world,particularly in the United Kingdom,so I would recommend they get that serious consideration,” he said on Wednesday.