COVID-19 vaccine rollout in Australia reaches 'inflection point': Lt General John Frewen

The Lieutenant General in charge of the vaccine rollout has stated that the Australian vaccine rollout has reached an "inflection point". Lieutenant General John Frewen has informed that it involved "hard work" to convince Australians to get vaccinated to achieve the 80 per cent vaccine target, reported ABC News. The health authorities have informed that people over the age of 60 would be eligible for Pfizer or Moderna vaccines to vaccinate people who have been holding out for mRNA shots.

Australians aged above 12 will also be eligible to receive either a Pfizer or Moderna vaccine. Lieutenant General John Frewen warned that people who have been waiting were "putting themselves at risk for many months", reported ABC News. Furthermore, the vaccine supply is now not an issue in the country. As per the ABC News report, Australia will receive over nine million Pfizer and three million Moderna doses during October. Lieutenant General Frewen told ABC News that the vaccination rollout has reached an "an inflection point" where "we go from the supply drivers to the demand drivers".

Furthermore, Frewen asserted that they will now focus on convincing people living in areas where the coronavirus outbreaks have not yet occurred to get vaccinated. Speaking to ABC News, Frewen stressed that they have seen overseas that 70 per cent of the population can be vaccinated but they need to work hard to vaccinate 80 per cent population and to vaccinate 90 per cent; he added, "that's a long, hard road". Meanwhile, on October 1, the Australian Health department informed that 80 per cent of the people aged above 16 have received their first dose and 55 per cent have been fully vaccinated.

COVID-19 situation in Australia 

According to the Australian Health Department, as of October 1, the country reported 1448 locally acquired COVID cases. Presently, there are 21,428 active coronavirus cases in Australia and 1514 are hospitalised. The total number of COVID cases have reached 105,123 and the total number of fatalities reported due to coronavirus is 1289. In Australia, 16,177,794  people have received one dose of vaccine and 11,357,591 people have been fully vaccinated. 

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