Centre for Big Data Research in Health, UNSW Sydney, Australia.
South Western Sydney Clinical School, Faculty of Medicine & Health, UNSW Sydney & Ingham Institute for Applied Medical Research, Australia.
Vaccine. 2022 Apr 14;40(17):2491-2497. doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2021.07.006. Epub 2021 Jul 17.
The Australian Government began to roll out the national COVID-19 vaccination program in late February 2021, with the initial aim to vaccinate the Australian adult population by the end of October 2021. The task of vaccinating some 20 million people presents considerable logistic challenges, but a rapid rollout is essential to allow for the reopening of borders and is especially urgent as new more transmissible variants arise. Here, we run a series of projections to estimate how long it will take to vaccinate the Australian population under different assumptions about the rate of vaccine administration, the schedule for vaccine eligibility and prevalence of vaccine hesitancy. Our analysis highlights the number of vaccine doses that can be administered per day as the key factor determining the duration of the vaccine rollout. A rate of 200,000 doses per day would achieve 90% population coverage by the end of 2021; 80,000 doses a day would see the rollout extended until mid-2023. Vaccine hesitancy has the potential to greatly slow down the rollout and becomes the main limiting factor when the supply of vaccine doses is high. Speed is of the essence when it comes vaccinating populations against COVID-19: a rapid rollout will minimise the risk of sporadic and costly lockdowns and the potential for small, local clusters getting out of control and sparking new epidemic waves. In order to achieve rapid population coverage, the Australian government must ramp up vaccine administration to at least 200,000 doses per day as quickly as possible, while also promoting vaccine willingness in the community through clear public health messaging, especially to known hesitant demographics.
澳大利亚政府于 2021 年 2 月底开始推出全国性的 COVID-19 疫苗接种计划，最初目标是在 2021 年 10 月底前为澳大利亚成年人口接种疫苗。为 2000 万人接种疫苗带来了相当大的后勤挑战，但快速推出疫苗对于重新开放边境至关重要，尤其是随着新的更具传染性的变种出现时。在这里，我们进行了一系列预测，以根据疫苗接种速度、疫苗接种资格时间表和疫苗犹豫率的不同假设，估计为澳大利亚人口接种疫苗需要多长时间。我们的分析强调了每天可接种的疫苗剂量数是决定疫苗接种推广持续时间的关键因素。每天 20 万剂的接种速度将在 2021 年底实现 90%的人口覆盖率；每天 8 万剂的接种速度将使疫苗接种推广延长到 2023 年年中。疫苗犹豫可能会大大减缓疫苗接种的速度，并在疫苗供应充足时成为主要的限制因素。为了应对 COVID-19 对人群进行疫苗接种，速度至关重要：快速推广将最大限度地降低零星和昂贵的封锁风险，以及小范围、局部集群失控并引发新的疫情波的潜在风险。为了实现快速的人群覆盖，澳大利亚政府必须尽快将疫苗接种量提高到每天至少 20 万剂，同时通过明确的公共卫生信息传达，特别是针对已知犹豫不决的人群，促进社区中的疫苗接种意愿。
