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AAP
AAP
Health
Aaron Bunch

NT set to miss 80 per cent vax target date

Nearly one month into the race to freedom, the Northern Territory's vaccine rollout is sluggish. (AAP)

The Northern Territory will miss its target to have 80 per cent of its eligible population fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by early November.

Chief Minister Michael Gunner released the aspirational plan in mid-September, saying "we are now in a 50-day race to freedom".

But 27 days into that race, the territory's vaccine rollout is dawdling.

A government spokesman told AAP the target rate is unlikely to be reached until several weeks after the planned date in early November.

It was now likely to be late in the month, he said.

According to the NT government, 66 per cent of the eligible population was fully vaccinated as of Monday.

That's up from the 52 per cent of Territorians over 16 who were fully vaccinated on September 15.

To reach the 80 per cent target, the territory will need to vaccinate the same amount of people again.

That task becomes even tougher if the commonwealth's vaccination figures for the NT are used.

It says 56.4 per cent of Territorians are vaccinated as of Saturday, according to Medicare card data.

The NT's sluggish vaccination rate comes amid a "six-week vaccination blitz" that's almost complete.

The "freedom" plan also requires most remote Indigenous communities to hit the 80 per cent fully vaccinated rate, with a small number of stragglers likely to face travel restrictions to protect their vulnerable residents.

But the vaccination rate for remote areas is lagging even further behind the overall NT rate, with 44 per cent of residents fully vaccinated.

Health Minister Natasha Fyles said she was extremely concerned about the low rate.

"Some communities, where it might be just a couple of hundred people, we have virtually no protection with the vaccine," she said.

"We have visited those communities multiple times, we have provided information in language (and) we are working with community leaders."

Vaccine hesitancy linked to misinformation about its safety has been blamed for the slow uptake.

NT government data shows about one fifth of reporting communities have 10 per cent or less of the population fully vaccinated.

Ms Fyles said it was likely some remote communities won't reach the required 80 per cent double vaccinated rate with the rest of the NT.

She declined to say whether the NT would open up if the overall remote vaccination rate was below the target rate.

But she did say the NT had plenty of vaccines available for people in remote communities.

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