The ACT government has been forced to delay the opening of a new Covid vaccine clinic after underwhelming discussions with the Commonwealth about future vaccine supply.
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Territory Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith said on Wednesday the federal government's vaccine supply projections were "probably not where we would want them to be", and the launch of another ACT vaccination hub would be pushed back a few days.
"There's no limit in terms of the current capacity of our current delivery mechanisms here in the ACT to be able to do more if we had more supply," Ms Stephen-Smith said.
"We really want to see that stronger supply coming through of Pfizer, to the extent that they can.
"We recognise that the Commonwealth is itself constrained in terms of access to supply."
Ms Stephen-Smith refused to elaborate on just how many doses of Covid vaccine the ACT had been told to expect in the next projection period.
The minister indicated last Friday that for the next few weeks, at least, the territory would receive a good supply.
She said between 6000 and 7000 doses were expected each week, and the ACT also had nearly 16,000 doses of Covid vaccine in stock.
"That will see us through for the capacity of the Garran Surge Centre for the next few weeks," Ms Stephen-Smith said.
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She said on Wednesday that more than 18,000 Canberrans had booked in to get a Covid vaccine at an ACT government clinic since last Thursday.
She said nearly 34,000 Canberrans had used the ACT's booking systems to book a vaccine at a government clinic overall.
The Calvary Public Hospital Bruce AstraZeneca vaccine clinic was booked up until about mid-July, and the Pfizer vaccination clinic at Garran was booked through to June 22.
Ms Stephen-Smith said the launch of the territory's next vaccination hub would probably now be in a couple of weeks time.
"It's really a matter of having supply available to ensure that that's going to be sustainable facility when we open up the new hub," she said.
"That's part of the conversations that we're having with the Commonwealth about the supply projections that we are seeing at the moment.
"We don't want to open a hub and then find that we don't actually have the supply to to sustain that or to justify that."
The minister said the Commonwealth had asked states and territories to be ready to open up additional vaccine facilities, so that was what ACT authorities had been working towards.
She said it was yet to be determined whether the AstraZeneca or Pfizer vaccine would be administered at the new vaccine hub.
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