At a national cabinet meeting on April 22 it was agreed for this age group to be vaccinated through respiratory clinics and the states from May 3, and at GP clinics from May 17.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said it would give “ample time for them to gear up for that”.
“It’ll also give them more time for those GPs to focus continually on that over-70 population where they're working through very effectively,” he said.
“State and territory Pfizer vaccine rollouts, which are currently being done, will also be available to workforce in residential aged care facilities, as well as disability care.”
Department of Health secretary Professor Brendan Murphy said the Pfizer vaccine was now restricted to those under 50, with exceptions for aged care residents and frontline health, border and quarantine workers.
“The major driver of this is clearly the ATAGI advice in relation to this rare but significant adverse effect, thrombosis . . . which occurs more commonly in younger people,” he said.
“So for those who may choose not to have AstraZeneca . . . more Pfizer will be available later in the year.
“But at this stage we will not be making Pfizer available to those 50 and over.”
He also said the vaccination of residential aged care was “nearly finished”.
“Only a few more weeks to go and we have very, very efficient teams going in there giving Pfizer to our aged care residents,” he said.
“We will soon have them completely protected and they are the single most high-risk group in this country and all around the world from COVID.”
As of April 21, more than 1.7 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines had been administered, including 189,321 in aged care and disability facilities.
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