Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt defends country’s vaccination rollout

The federal Health Minister has said Australia’s coronavirus vaccination program is an “extraordinary achievement” even though only a fraction of the population has had their jabs.

Greg Hunt was questioned on Channel 7’s Sunrise program on Friday morning over the vaccine rollout and said Australia was likely to hit the four million jab mark before the end of the day.

“We’re likely to pass the four million mark today, that would be approximately 20 per cent of the adult population,” Mr Hunt said.

“We are focusing on protecting those who are most vulnerable, and we keep urging people to come forward to be tested and come forward to be vaccinated – Australians are doing a fantastic job, and I think it’s very important to put in perspective the extraordinary achievement of Australians and Australia.”

But host Natalie Barr pushed back, saying only 2 per cent of Australians had been vaccinated.

She was referring to a figure that Mr Hunt cited in an interview with ABC’s 7.30 program the night before, revealing only 500,000 people had been fully vaccinated with two doses each.

Half a million out of Australia’s total population of 25.7 million people is slightly less than 2 per cent.

“That’s not correct,” Mr Hunt replied.

He went back to citing the 20 per cent figure he mentioned earlier, but because that statistic was calculated as a proportion of the adult population who have had any number of jabs, it did not mean that Ms Barr’s point was incorrect.

Ms Barr received even stronger pushback for what she said next.

She claimed some people might be waiting to get vaccinated because the federal government had given them an impression there was “no rush”.

“It’s because you and the Prime Minister told them that. You said there is no rush, for weeks and weeks,” Ms Barr said.

“That’s false,” Mr Hunt interjected several times as she spoke.

“That’s not something I’ve ever said.”

While the federal government may not have told Australians who are eligible for their jabs to hold off on getting them, Mr Morrison has said previously there is no rush getting vaccines approved.

“There‘s been no delays. We’ve been moving as quickly as we possibly can. But equally, there’s been no rush,” Mr Morrison told the 2GB radio station on January 18.

As recently as April 21, Mr Morrison told reporters: “Australia proceeded very carefully to go through the approval phases of our vaccines.

“This was important, whether it was Pfizer or AstraZeneca, there were others who were saying that we should rush, there were others who thought that we should just go into emergency type approvals of our vaccines, and we chose not to do that.”

The four million jab milestone the nation was likely to reach on Friday was originally meant to have happened by the end of March, but difficulties in sourcing enough doses contributed to delaying that goal significantly.