Australian adults can book an AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine within days as thousands make appointments to help end lockdowns.
The federal government’s eligibility checker shows Australians which venues are offering vaccinations in their local area.
Users can sort the venues by ‘nearest’ or ‘earliest available’, an option which shows the first open appointment.
Australian adults can book an AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine within days. Pictured: Residents exercise in Sydney’s inner west on Monday
Appointment times are regularly updated, allowing an eagle-eyed user to book one within days or even on the same day.
On Friday Scott Morrison announced a roadmap to freedom which makes lockdowns much ‘less likely’ when 70 per cent of over 16s are vaccinated and allows overseas holidays when 80 per cent are double-jabbed.
The Prime Minister is hopeful the 70 per cent rate will be achieved before the end of the year as thousands of young people come forward to get AstraZeneca.
‘What we’re seeing in New South Wales now is AstraZeneca dosage rates amongst 16 to 39 year olds just rapidly escalate,’ he said on Monday.
Some 19.23 per cent of Australian adults have been double-vaccinated, up from just 7.92 per cent on July 1.
‘We’ve seen our vaccination rates on double dose now more than double in the last month. I mean, in July we were up some 4.5 million vaccines in the month,’ Mr Morrison said.
In April the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) said the AstraZeneca jab was only recommended for over 50s because of a low risk of blood clots in younger people.
The Prime Minister is hopeful the 70 per cent rab ate will be achieved before the end of the year as thousands of young people come forward to get AstraZeneca
In June the body increased the minimum recommend age to 60, denting confidence and delaying the jab rollout by two months as the government scrambled to get more Pfizer into the country.
Then in July as Sydney’s outbreak worsened, ATAGI said all over 18s should consider getting the vaccine because the risk of catching Covid had increased, a move which has allowed the rollout to rapidly ramp up.
Children aged 12 to 17 can only get the Pfizer vaccine.
Mr Morrison said: ‘We had those early problems, we’ve got on top of them, we’ve turned it around and we’ve got our gold medal run till the end of the year to get this done.’
Sydney recorded another 209 cases on Monday as Premier Gladys Berejiklian said officials would take into account case numbers and vaccination rates when deciding to end lockdown.
South-east Queensland recorded another 13 cases and lockdown was extended until Saturday.
Government experts did modelling (above) to show the risk of getting a blood clot from the Astrazeneca vaccine for each age group, compared with the benefits of getting the jab