Premier Daniel Andrews on Thursday morning.Credit:Luis Ascui
The TGA alsoapproved the use of the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine as a primary,two-dose course for adults.
Almost 1 million Australians – 5 per cent of people aged over 16 years – are yet to receive a single dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
Neither medicine is recommended for people who are pregnant or breastfeeding. It is recommended that people with childbearing potential use contraception during the course of their treatment. Paxlovid must also not be used with a number of other commonly used medicines,according to the TGA.
The drug regulator says the federal government has secured 500,000 courses of Paxlovid and 300,000 courses of Lagevrio so far this year.
The first shipments of both medicines are expected to arrive in the coming weeks.
Thousands of health workers furloughed
Almost 4000 Victorian healthcare workers are still unable to work due to testing positive for COVID-19 or caring for others infected with the virus.
However,COVID-19 response commander Jeroen Weimar said the relaxation of quarantine exemption arrangements for people in critical industries had seen 500 workers return to work in the past 24 hours.
Mr Weimar said the state’s testing numbers were also beginning to stabilise after a peak over the festive period that saw thousands of people line up for hours outside testing sites and long waits for test results.
“We’re now seeing[coronavirus testing] waiting times well under half-an-hour,on average,across our entire network,” Mr Weimar said. “That’s getting into the zone that we’ve always been in,the zone we want to stay in.”
There are approximately 200,000 COVID-19 vaccination appointments available across state-run clinics over the coming weeks,including 54,000 slots of children aged five to eleven.
State’s active cases hit 246,894
There are now 246,894 active COVID-19 infections across Victoria. There are 1206 patients in hospital,with 122 in intensive care and 40 on a ventilator.
The 15 people who died with the virus were aged in their 50s,60s,70s,80s,and 90s. Their deaths bring the total number in the state since the pandemic began to 1751.
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Of the new cases announced by health authorities on Thursday,11,693 were diagnosed through PCR testing and another 10,273 were self-reported results from rapid antigen tests.
Of the people who self-reported positive rapid antigen test results,about 63 per cent took the tests on Wednesday. About 19 per cent took the tests on Tuesday and the remainder of people took the tests over the previous five days.
More than 22,266 Victorians received a dose of the COVID-19 vaccine at state-run sites on Wednesday,increasing the state’s vaccine coverage to more than 93 per cent for people aged 12 and over. To date,27 per cent of eligible Victorians have received a booster shot.
Victorians made 115,000 bookings to get a dose of the coronavirus vaccine over the past week. About 77,000 of those were for booster shots and 36,000 for children getting their first dose.