New Zealand kicked off its Covid-19 vaccination program today, with vaccinators themselves receiving the first of the Pfizer-BioNTech shots and border and quarantine staff to follow from tomorrow. Australia is set to start on Monday, with frontline health workers, quarantine and border workers and aged care and disability residents all being prepared for the first phase.

The ball has started rolling on the largest vaccination programs our countries have ever seen, and the hope is the majority of our populations will be covered by October. We’ll wait and see on that as systems fall into place to support the wider roll-out to the community, and fingers crossed everything goes smoothly. Our technology companies are coming to the party, deploying IT solutions at pace, and we hope to hear more news on how general practice will be supported as it prepares.