Australia Health Minister Hunt: We will bring forward eligibility for booster dose to four months

Australia finally matched market expectations of shortening the gap between two vaccine doses and a booster, after staying silent over the move in Wednesday’s cabinet meeting.

Australia Health Minister Greg Hunt took the honor to announce the same on early Friday morning in the Asia-Pacific zone. ABC News first shared the comments as follows.

Key quotes

On the basis of advice of the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI), it's no surprise we will be bringing forward the eligibility for the booster dose to four months as of 4 January.

The planning behind that is that will open up a new cohort. 

Currently that means that we will go from about 3.2 million people who are eligible today to approximately 7.5 million who will be eligible as 4 January. That means that the cohort has expanded.

It will be expanded again on the 31st of January to three months and that will take it out to 16 million Australians who will be eligible at that point in time.

192,000 booster doses were administered yesterday.

FX reaction

Despite the upbeat news, AUD/USD keeps taking round to the monthly ascending resistance line, near December’s high of 0.7253, amid a quiet session.

Read: AUD/USD: Bulls battle monthly resistance around 0.7250 amid upbeat sentiment