Novavax could have ‘significant’ impact on vax rate

Australia will soon offer four different Covid vaccines with approval of the long-awaited Novavax jab expected within days.

The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) is close to completing its assessment of the vaccine, after recently receiving the final data.

Health Minister Greg Hunt says a decision will be made imminently, adding he was seeking an assurance about supply from the company.

“I’m hopeful that that will be very promising,” Mr Hunt said. “There is 51 million doses of Novavax, if the regulator were to approve that.”

Only 5 per cent of Australians aged 16 and over have not yet had a Covid jab.

But Mr Hunt said Novavax was expected to get at least 1 per cent – or 200,000 people – over the line, which was “significant”.

“That will have been significant,” he said.

Novavax has only applied for its Covid jab — which is a protein-based vaccine, not an mRNA vaccine like Pfizer and Moderna – to be used for primary vaccination courses.

This means it will have to submit another application to the TGA for its vaccine to be used for booster shots.

Mr Hunt said doses that will not be used by Australia will be shared with Pacific neighbours.

If the vaccine is approved, Australia’s expert immunisation panel will also have to give Novavax the green light before shots can go in arms.

‘CODE BROWN’ FOR VIC HOSPITALS

Victoria will declare an unprecedented “code brown” across all of Melbourne’s public hospitals and six regional health services as surging Covid-19 cases continue to take a toll on the health system.

Tens of thousands of workers from private hospitals will also be made available to cover dire staff shortages in public hospitals through an agreement with the federal government.

Victoria recorded 20,180 new cases on Tuesday, with 22 people dying overnight.

There are 1152 in hospital, with 127 people receiving intensive care and 42 fighting for life on a ventilator.

Deputy Premier James Merlino announced the massive change to the management of the health system would come into effect from noon on Wednesday. He said busy hospitals had asked for the declaration, and that the sector was under “extreme pressure”.

“We’ve reached a point in our health system where it’s juggling severe workforce shortages … alongside a vast number of patients with Covid-19 needing hospitalisation,” he said.

“We could well get to over 2500 hospitalisations and more over the next few weeks.”

Mr Merlino said hospitalisations were at risk of rising by as much as 100 people a day.

The code brown was triggered because more than 4000 health services staff have Covid-19 or are in isolation and hospital admissions are expected to soon pass 1500 cases.

The regional health services affected are Barwon Health, Grampians Health, Bendigo Health, Goulburn Valley Health, Albury Wodonga Health and La Trobe Regional Hospital.