‘Hunger Games’: NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard offers scathing review of vaccine rollout
Hunger Games #HungerGames
Trying to get a Covid-19 vaccination is a bit like the “Hunger Games”, according to the NSW Health Minister.
Brad Hazzard offered the scathing review of the vaccine rollout while standing alongside the NSW Premier and chief health officer to deliver the latest Covid update.
There have been 35 new cases of Covid in NSW, a huge spike on the 16 infections revealed on Sunday.
While addressing the media, Mr Hazzard was probed about the commonwealth rollout.
“It is almost a sense now of the ‘Hunger Games’, of people chasing the vaccine,” he said.
“Until we get enough vaccine (doses) and enough GPs actually at the frontline able to provide that vaccine into arms, we will continue to have effectively the Hunger Games going on here in NSW.”
He was quick to defend the federal government though.
“It is easy to be critical in hindsight but the federal government did their best to try and get the vaccine when we didn’t know what vaccines would become available,” he said.
“Of course the AstraZeneca has had its challenges and Pfizer supplies haven’t been great, so accepting that the federal government did their best at a difficult time to get as much vaccine as possible.
“The focus should be on at the moment, and the federal government appears to be doing this, is to try to roll out as much vaccine as they have available. They are doing their best to get more vaccines.”
A little more than 7 per cent of the Australian population is fully vaccinated and about eight million doses have been administered, well behind other developed nations.
The sluggish rollout is a cause for concern as the nation grapples with Covid spot fires in several jurisdictions, particularly in NSW.
Of the 35 new cases revealed on Monday, 24 were in isolation for their full infectious period.
Four cases were in isolation for part of their infectious period and seven were in the community.
There are five new cases associated with Virgin flight VA524 from the Gold Coast to Sydney on June 26, bringing the total number of infections linked to the flight to nine – eight passengers and a household contact.
“It is pleasing to see that we’ve contacted those individuals. We had already identified them as close contacts and they were isolating and therefore pose no other risk to the community,” NSW chief health officer Kerry Chant said.
She warned anyone who was on that flight who was in isolation to remain at home for the full 14 days.
Meanwhile, another two residents at an aged care home in Sydney have tested positive, taking that cluster to five.
The two new infections are both women in their 70s. Only one of the women has been vaccinated.