“The general population,so those 60-plus who are to get AstraZeneca,had been getting delivered through GPs and the Commonwealth vaccination centres,” she said.

When the advice from the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation changed in relation to people under 60 in mid-June,the state’s request for the Commonwealth to redistribute its allocation to GPs where demand lay was met without concern,Ms D’Ath said.

She was surprised to have heard the comment from Mr Hunt about the lack of an order,and urged the governments to “not play politics”.

“As advice changes,we will change our approach as well,but we still believe the pharmacies and our GPs are in the best position to roll out AstraZeneca to the general population ... because people should go to the GP and get advice,and also pharmacies administer flu vaccines every single day. People have confidence and trust in going to them,” she said.

With Queensland now in the grip of its worst cluster since the first wave of the virus last year,and the previously blunt chief health officer,Jeannette Young,telling younger Queenslanders now was the time tospeak to their GPs about getting AstraZeneca under renewed ATAGI advice about Delta strain outbreaks,Ms D’Ath has said GPs were seeing renewed demand.

Gold Coast-based federal LNP frontbencher Stuart Robert accused Ms D’Ath of playing politics on Wednesday for demanding additional vaccines,which “didn’t turn up yesterday”. State Opposition health spokesperson Ros Bates said the calls were “hypocritical”.

Existing state supplies of AstraZeneca,still being used for some second doses in state clinics,will also be passed to pharmacies ahead of the new supplies.

In NSW,people under 40 can now access the vaccinethrough mass state-run hubs,in a shifted approach amid Sydney’s outbreak.

Only one in five Queenslanders have been fully vaccinated,with some of themore than 220,000 on the Pfizer waiting list not expecting appointments until October,and some regions of the state revealed to haveamong the lowest coverage in the country.

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