A record day of vaccinations pushed up the proportion of Australians who have received at least one dose to 29.6 per cent of the eligible population.
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The spike in doses administered occurred despite a week of drama between state and federal leaders that boiled over in the wake of a series of unilateral announcements from the Prime Minister after a national cabinet meeting.
The 24 hours to midnight on Wednesday had the highest number of Covid vaccine doses administered since the rollout began. The 161,390 doses in a single day brought the total number of first doses received to more than 6.1 million.
The comparison offered for the single-day record was the equivalent per population of the United States administering 2 million doses in a single day - which it has never done.
The federal government began releasing daily updates on the number of Australians that have received two doses of vaccine, now totalling more than 1.6 million, or a little under 8 per cent of the eligible population.
Detailed age breakdowns were also revealed, with more than 736,000 Australians under the age of 40 having received at least one dose of the vaccine, despite eligibility confusion.
Of the almost 3 million who were 70 or older, and considered among the most vulnerable, around 70 per cent had received at least one dose. A little more than 15 per cent had received two doses.
But the low proportion of all eligible Australians who have had two doses has been slammed by commentators, including former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull.
Mr Turnbull has dumped on his successor, calling the vaccine rollout "a phenomenal failure in public administration".
"It is hugely disappointing," he told ABC News.
"We are way behind from where we need to be, and really it is inexcusable.
"I can't think of a bigger black-and-white failure of public administration than this."
The government's Covid taskforce commander, Lieutenant-General John Frewen, hoped the rollout would continue to accelerate.
"Vaccination is one of the most important ways that Australia will be able to not only keep our citizens safe but help get people's livelihoods back on a more even footing and then help us enjoy those freedoms that we all want to go back to," he told the Today show.
However state and territory leaders have been calling for a steep cut in overseas arrival caps to allow the governments to catch up with vaccinating all its front-line and support workers as a measure against the more serious Delta strain of the coronavirus.
Federal Finance Minister Simon Birmingham acknowledged the confusion over the advice around when taking AstraZeneca was appropriate.
"All governments should be working collaboratively on the vaccine rollout, yet it's been challenging as the health advice has changed along the way in terms of recommendations about which vaccine is preferred for different age groups," Mr Birmingham said.
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He was responding to what he described as "extremist" and "deeply unhelpful" comments by Queensland Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young for saying she didn't want to see an 18-year-old die from a rare clotting illness when they probably would not have died from a Covid infection.
"They do help anti-vaxxers," he said of the comments by the Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and those of the Queensland Chief Health Officer.
The government's expert immunisation panel, Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation, has not changed its advice that Pfizer and not AstraZeneca is the recommended vaccine for those under 60 due to extremely rare but serious blood clots linked to AstraZeneca.
The panel's co-chair Christopher Blyth sought to quell confusion, saying people under 60 should get the Pfizer jab.
Professor Blyth said people in that age group should only be considering AstraZeneca in "pressing" circumstances.
"There are some situations where that would be warranted, but they are quite small," he told ABC radio.
The Therapeutic Goods Administration said it was unclear whether the vaccine played a role in the death of a woman in the UK five weeks after receiving her first dose of AstraZeneca in Australia.
- with AAP
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