Australians will have their wait for a COVID-19 vaccine booster slashed as authorities scramble to slow the spread of the Omicron variant.
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The Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation has recommended Australians receive a third dose four months after their second from January 4. That will be slashed to just three months from January 31.
The move follows calls from state premiers and federal Labor, who urged the Coalition to slash wait times as COVID-19 cases exploded over the Christmas period.
Making the announcement on Friday morning, Health Minister Greg Hunt described the decision as "no surprise" given the highly-infectious new strain was spreading rapidly across Australia.
"These dates have been set out of an abundance of caution to give Australians early, continued protection," he said.
"The advice we have is that the protection as it is is very strong against severe illness, but what we'll see is a much stronger protection against transmission."
The state and territories will be able to bring the timeframes forward if they have the capacity to do so, without undermining access for immunocompromised and elderly Australians.
A two-dose course has proven significantly less effective against Omicron than previous strains.
But Chief medical officer Paul Kelly said were "not enough" by themselves, with restrictions reintroduced by the states also contributing to the fight.
"With the booster, [protection] goes back towards the same levels as [against] Delta. It will be an important, and is already becoming an important, part of our control of the current Omicron wave in Australia," he said.
The decision will make an additional 4.3 million people eligible for a booster on January 4, with a total of 16 million eligible by the end of that month.
But with pharmacies reporting they were already struggling to fill demand, Mr Hunt said there were 20 million doses in Australia.
The Health Minister insisted, while currently supply could eventually administer five doses to eligible Australians, the revised timetable would focus on the most vulnerable.
"A very important principle ... [is] focusing on the priority populations. The further someone has been from their second dose, the more important it is that they're vaccinated by acting at four months," he said.
"Then progressively at three months, we're giving the highest priority to those who have the greatest distance in time from having been vaccinated."
Mr Hunt expected Australia to pass two million boosters on Friday morning, with another 148,000 administered on Thursday.
"Australians are exceeding expectations, and that's just a great tribute to our health workers, our medical workers, but above all else, to all of those Australians who come forward through all of the different channels," he said.
Data suggested Omicron was significantly less severe than previous variants, though its hyper-transmissibility remained a threat to Australia's health systems.
A study in the UK on Thursday evening suggested people with Omicron were 50 to 70 per cent less liekly to be hospitalised than those with the Delta strain.
Professor Kelly said hospitalisation rates had not escalated as quickly as case numbers so far, though there had been a slight rise in NSW over recent days.
"Almost all of those have been unvaccinated, not even a first dose, let alone a booster," he said.
It comes weeks after Omicron prompted the UK to slash wait times from six to three months.
Labor leader Anthony Albanese said the "only explanation" for the staggered adjustment were capacity constraints.
"The government once again hasn't been ahead of the game when it comes to preparing for the action that is required, based upon our own health advice and based upon international experience," he said on Friday.
Mr Albanese on Thursday called for ATAGI to cut waits for boosters, saying the international evidence backed the move.
Mr Hunt blasted the comments as "utterly irresponsible", accusing the Labor leader over undermining an independent ATAGI process.
"This announcement today, which is quite extraordinary given Greg Hunt's comments yesterday afternoon, follows a very consistent pattern," Mr Albanese said.
"Labor says something constructive, the Government ridicules it and trashes it. A day or two later, they announce it as their own policy, and want everyone to acknowledge what I masterstroke it is that they have come up with."
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