Australians will require three Covid vaccine doses to be considered fully vaccinated

Australians will now need three Covid vaccine doses to be considered “up to date” with their shots, but it will be left to individual states to set their own rules on booster mandates.

On Thursday, federal health minister Greg Hunt announced the government’s immunisation advisory body had now updated its guidance. The Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation’s new guidance states a third dose is required for someone to be considered “up to date” with their vaccinations. The terminology will replace the status of two doses being considered “fully vaccinated”, in recognition of booster doses being needed for better protection against the Omicron variant.

“ATAGI recommend that everyone aged 16 years and older receive a booster dose three months after their primary course, to maintain the best protection and an ‘up to date’ status,” Hunt said in a statement.

“Further, ATAGI has advised that if it has been longer than six months since a person’s primary course and they haven’t had a booster, they will no longer be considered ‘up to date’ and instead will be considered ‘overdue’.”

The announcement followed the latest meeting of national cabinet where states and territories also agreed to start moving toward the final phase of Australia’s virus reopening plan and begin to treat Covid the same way as the flu.

At the end of another hectic sitting week of federal parliament, the prime minister Scott Morrison dialled in to chair the meeting on Thursday afternoon. The meeting of state and federal leaders resolved that the Department of Health would lead a “winter preparedness audit” of health systems, ahead of an expected wave of COVID and flu this winter.

Victorian premier Daniel Andrews had led calls for the definition of “fully vaccinated” to be extended from two to three doses for several weeks, but the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (Atagi) advice on the change had remained pending for some time.

National cabinet agreed to set no national three-dose mandates except for workers in aged care, and instead leave booster rules to individual jurisdictions.

Last week, chief medical officer Professor Paul Kelly had flagged such a change.

“Rather than ‘fully’ [vaccinated], talking about ‘up to date’, that’s the terminology we use with other immunisations,” he said on 3 February.