Australia's Freedom Day: New data reveals exactly when the country will achieve 'herd immunity' – meaning we'll be free to travel, drink in pubs and avoid lockdowns
Australians will be able to travel freely again, enjoy a drink in pubs and live without fear of snap lockdowns by Melbourne Cup Day, new data analysis has claimed.
A detailed assessment of the national vaccine rollout found by November 2 the Australian government will have sourced enough jabs to inoculate 80 per cent of the population.
Data analyst Kenneth Tsang calculated 20 million more doses were needed to vaccinate four-fifths of those aged between 16 and 59 and achieve herd immunity.
The claim comes despite Australia's bungled vaccination program so far only fully immunising 7.1 per cent of the eligible population against the deadly virus.
Mr Tsang, who founded the exposure site tracking website Covid-19 Near Me, based his estimate on the government's COVID Vaccination Allocations Horizons vaccine supply document.
'Accounting for the 4 million doses already administered to this age group, 20 million doses are required to vaccinate 80 per cent of the 16-59 population,' he said.
Australia will have sourced enough jabs to inoculate 80 per cent of the population and achieve herd immunity by November 2, new analysis has claimed. Pictured is a queue at Sydney's Olympic Park mass vaccination hub on Wednesday
Australia's bungled vaccination program has so far immunised only 7.1 per cent of the eligible population. Pictured is a graph showing Australia's vaccination rate relative to other countries around the world on June 22 when that figure was 4.68 per cent
'From the Horizons document, we can estimate that 20 million doses will arrive the week commencing November 1, 2021.'
He based his date estimate on the fact 66 per cent of Australians over the age of 60 had already received one dose of the vaccine, News Corp reported.
The Horizon document sets out targets for vaccine supply across the states and territories until the end of the year as the AstraZeneca vaccine - which is linked to rare blood clotting incidents - is phased out in favour of the Pfizer and Moderna jabs.
Between October and December 2021, the document says 1.7 million to 2.3 million doses of Pfizer and 430,000 to 615,000 will be delivered to the states and territories.
Critically though, Mr Tsang said his rollout predictions were based solely on vaccine supply forecasts and didn't include the time it would take to administer the jabs.
A queue at a pop-up Covid-19 testing facility in Melbourne. About 20 million more doses are needed to vaccinate four-fifths of those aged between 16 and 59 and achieve herd immunity, data analyst Kenneth Tsang calculated
'It'll be safe to say that once the supply arrives in Australia, it'll take a few weeks for those doses to get to clinics and get administered as first and second doses,' he said.
His modelling also doesn't factor in how long it would take to distribute the vaccine across Australia and batch testing times.
6PR executive producer Karalee Katsambanis said Australia needed to choose a date to emerge from Covid-19 restrictions once and for all and accept there may still be a level of community transmission.
'I think the line in the sand needs to be drawn to say, 'right, Australia needs to open up on this date',' she told Sky News.
New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian has already said life in her state cannot resume as normal until 80 per cent of the population is vaccinated.
On Monday, Ms Berejiklian said once that percentage of residents in her state had received the jab NSW can 'start a conversation' about how to live alongside Covid-19 without restrictions.
'Covid-19 might be around for a long time. You do need to look at what life looks like because what we want to do is to prevent ever having to go into lockdown ever again,' she said.
Then on Wednesday, the premier again said that vaccination would provide the key to returning to normal, with tougher restrictions required from now until most of the population have been jabbed.
Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk (pictured on Wednesday) has not spoken about living alongside Covid this week
'We know this very contagious strain of the virus is something we've not dealt with before in this way and therefore we will need to consider what Covid life looks like between coming out of the lockdown and also when the vast majority of our population is vaccinated,' she said.
'The sooner our population is vaccinated, the sooner we can get to Covid-normal.'
In a stark contrast, Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews - who want zero cases in the community - have not mentioned living with Covid this week and instead have called for a cut to the number of Australians returning home from overseas to reduce to risk of outbreaks from hotel quarantine.