Coronavirus in Ballarat: BHS confident in vaccine supply levels

On Wednesday, the first day of the five-day blitz to vaccinate aged care and disability workers, more than 1200 vaccination was injected in to arms across the Grampians region, the bulk at the BHS Community Vaccine Centre at the Mercure.

Waiting times for walk in patients not in the priority group extended to around two hours, while demand was a little slower on Thursday.

"BHS is confident that the supply of vaccine committed by the Commonwealth will continue to be delivered each week, and we continue to accept walk-ins for people aged 50 years and over for their AstraZeneca vaccine," BHS said in a statement.

"Walk-ins are not accepted for people 40-49 years who are eligible for Pfizer. The only exception to this is Grampians region aged care and disability workers until 4pm Sunday June 6." More than 50,000 Victorians were vaccinated on Wednesday including a record 23,921 at state-run clinics.

Victoria's deputy chief health officer Professor Allen Cheng said the state was working from a "small stockpile" of the Pfizer vaccine.

"In general there's a constrained supply of Pfizer vaccine - if we had more we would be able to give more," he said. "There's a supply chain. It comes from the Commonwealth, in turn it comes from overseas so we are making do with what we've got at the moment."

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Professor Cheng said it was unclear when more supplies would become available.

"Clearly there's been a surge in demand for the vaccine and there's not a supply to be able to meet that. We are still vaccinating at the moment, in terms of going forward ... we're not sure exactly when that supply will become available and we are trying to do the best we can with the supply we have."

He said stocks were also being held to ensure people due to have their second dose would be covered.

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