On the official figures, the ACT has hit more than 100 per cent of the eligible population being vaccinated.
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According to the Department of Health, 344,124 Canberrans over the age of 16 have had one jab out of a population in this age group of 344,037.
In other words, if both sets of figures are completely accurate, 87 more people in the ACT have had at least one jab than actually live there.
How can that be?
The most likely explanation, according to demographers, is that population figures are not completely up-to-date and currently accurate. They are taken at a particular point in time and don't get updated by the day. The census was in 2016 and officials have then estimated the growth since.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics works to population estimates from 2019.
On the other hand, the authorities know exactly how many people have been vaccinated.
Jabs are logged on the Australian Immunisation Register and there is no reason that the figures aren't accurate within no more than a very small margin of error.
There are other factors which make the percentage approximate in all states and territories. If students stay at university, for example, they may not be registered in the population figures. That may be true in the ACT.
But whatever the inevitable inexactitudes in the figure, there is no doubt that a very high proportion of Canberrans are vaccinated.
In the ACT, the numbers of anti-vaxxers and those who are merely reluctant is likely to be low.
Firstly, the population is highly educated, and education and vaccination rates rise together. Educated people are more likely to accept the science and to accept vaccination.
According to the 2016 census, a quarter of Canberrans have education beyond school compared with only 16 per cent for Australia as a whole.
Canberrans are also better paid and more likely to be in full-time employment than the average Australian, and that, too, is a good indicator of the likelihood of getting vaccinated.
So the demographics were there.
But there may be a slight political problem: do the figures become incredible in the eyes of those who campaign against vaccination on social media, particularly in the darker corners of the web?
This may be one of the reasons that the ACT Chief Minister has been reluctant to admit to inaccuracies.
If the goalposts were repeatedly moved as definitions changed, trust might be diminished.
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Steve Evans
Steve Evans is a reporter on The Canberra Times. He's been a BBC correspondent in New York, London, Berlin and Seoul and the sole reporter/photographer/paper deliverer on The Glen Innes Examiner in country New South Wales. "All the jobs have been fascinating - and so it continues."
Steve Evans is a reporter on The Canberra Times. He's been a BBC correspondent in New York, London, Berlin and Seoul and the sole reporter/photographer/paper deliverer on The Glen Innes Examiner in country New South Wales. "All the jobs have been fascinating - and so it continues."
