• Phase 1B of Australia’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout began on Monday, offering some six million people access to the jab.
• The next step in Australia’s vaccination program comes a day after the locally-produced AstraZeneca vaccine received Therapeutic Goods Administration approval.
• The troubled launch of the national vaccine booking system and flooding in New South Wales has impacted some GPs hoping to administer the vaccine.
• Visit Business Insider Australia’s homepage for more stories.

Six million Australians will be eligible to receive their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine from Monday, as GPs regroup from last week’s troubled launch of the national vaccine booking system and heavy flooding in New South Wales.

Phase 1B of the vaccine rollout is now underway, with those aged 75 and over, Indigenous Australians over 55, and workers in critical services cleared to receive the jab.

Speaking on “Sunrise”, Deputy Chief Medical Officer Professor Michael Kidd said participating GPs and clinics will soon receive between 50 and 200 doses a week, with supply increasing over time.

Australia’s access to the AstraZeneca vaccine was bolstered on Sunday, when the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) approved the locally-produced variant, manufactured in Melbourne’s CSL facility, for widespread use.

“As soon as the TGA has completed its batch testing, we’ll start to get the rollout of those vaccines from CSL,” Prof Kidd said.

The CSL facility is expected to produce one million doses a week at full capacity, and supply a total of 50 million doses for Australia’s vaccine rollout.

Those doses will be warmly received by Australia’s GPs and participating clinics, many of whom were blindsided by last week’s launch of the Federal Government’s vaccine booking system.

GPs claimed they were inundated by calls despite possessing meagre supplies of the imported AstraZeneca vaccine, leading Royal Australian College of General Practitioners President Dr Karen Price to raise her concerns with Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Heath Minister Greg Hunt on Friday.

Morrison and Hunt “acknowledged the stress not having advance warning had caused,” Dr Price told NewsGP, adding that the Federal Government assured a gradually increasing supply of AstraZeneca vaccines to GPs.

“It’s going to take a little bit of time, but we’ll have some predictability,” Dr Price said.

The launch of Phase 1B also coincides with severe weather and heavy flooding in Western Sydney and regions of NSW’s mid-north coast, raising concerns of further supply chain interruptions and appointment delays.

Flooding caused some “inevitable” delivery delays, Prof Kidd said Sunday, but would-be vaccine recipients have been urged to be mindful of current weather conditions.

“It is very important that those people who are in the areas affected by the floods [consider] safety first, don’t put yourself at risk just going to get your vaccine,” Prof Kidd told “Sunrise” Monday morning.

Some 200,000 Australians have been vaccinated so far.

The Federal Government says every adult Australian will be offered their first of two vaccine doses by the end of October, a figure which will require a rapid scaling up of the nation’s vaccination capacities.

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