The moment Dan Andrews loses it: Furious premier slams Scott Morrison for playing favourites with Covid-19 jab rollout and insists he signed up to a plan to 'vaccinate Australia, not just Sydney'

• Victoria recorded 246 Covid-19 cases amid rush to vaccinate Year 12 students
• Premier Daniel Andrews lashed out at federal government over vaccine rollout 
• Accused NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian of receiving preferential treatment
• Pleaded for additional vaccines to make up for extra doses distributed to NSW
• Prime Minister has hit back, claiming Victoria has had doses fast-tracked twice

A furious Daniel Andrews has launched into another scathing attack at Prime Minister Scott Morrison over the national vaccination rollout. 

The Victoria Premier is angry Covid-ravaged NSW is getting more than its fair share of jabs, arguing he signed up to a plan for the whole of Australia not just Sydney.

It comes as another 246 new Covid-19 cases were recorded in Victoria on Tuesday.

While the Premier acknowledged the NSW outbreak is worse, he accused the federal government of giving NSW counterpart Gladys Berejiklian preferential treatment.

He claims Victoria has missed out around 340,000 doses as a result as he called for a policy overhaul from the federal government. 

'I signed up to a national plan to vaccinate our nation, not a national plan to vaccinate Sydney,' Mr Andrews said. 

'We have seen hundreds of thousands of vaccines that should have come and now should be in the arms of Victorians going into Sydney, into GP practices and into NSW.' 

'We don't begrudge that Sydney is in a very different set of circumstances.'

'But this was not announced. It was done without anyone knowing. The Commonwealth have got caught doing it. So it needs to stop.'

'Something like 340,000 doses have not come to Victoria that should have which would have meant we were closer to 70 and 80 per cent.'

'It would mean we were closer to ending these lockdowns, so you can see a sense of frustration, and I'm sure in others, of anger.'  

Victoria is still days away from 70 per cent of eligible residents having received their first dose, a target achieved by NSW a week ago.

Data obtained by ABC's 7.30 shows NSW received 45 per cent of the Pfizer doses allocated to primary caregivers, mostly GPs, in August while Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia all received less than their share of the population.

Mr Andrews pleaded for additional vaccines to be fast-tracked to make up for the extra doses distributed to NSW. 

'Some don't like to see this as a race. But a race, it surely is,' Mr Andrews continued.

'What I didn't know was that Premier Berejiklian is in a sprint, while the rest of us are supposed to do some sort of egg and spoon thing. No, we want our fair share!'

'These allocations which are totally unfair and were under the table, need to stop.'

'I am not about getting angry for its own sake. That achieves nothing. But they need to be called out.' 

He reiterated his message that Victoria didn't signed up to a national plan to vaccinate Sydney.

'Whilst I have been very clear the extra allocations given to them and known and announced and above board and clearly transparent that was a good thing. Let's be clear we are not talking about those doses,' Mr Andrews said.

'We are talking about otherwise secret arrangements that are just not right. They need to stop. We need to get the doses we didn't get fast-tracked to us.'

Mr Andrews called on federal health minister Greg Hunt to fix the problem.

'We are not doormats and we're not going to sit here and cop this and for politeness sake not say anything' he said.

'We need a square up with this. It is up to the Commonwealth. They designed this system and created this problem.'

Newly-appointed Victorian Opposition leader Matthew Guy agreed his state deserved its fair share of vaccines.

The Prime Minister was quick to hit back at Mr Andrews’ claims of NSW getting preferential treatment.

'I don't share that view. Victoria had doses brought forward in their case as well on two occasions,' Mr Morrison told Sky News shortly afterwards.

The Prime Minister said he personally stopped NSW taking doses from other states in early July when the Sydney outbreak escalated.

'I'll tell you who said no to that, it was me,' he said.

'I went out and got more doses from Poland and that's where the additional doses come from.'

Mr Morrison did not directly address the issue that more GPs have been brought online in NSW than in other states. 

The federal health minister defended giving more doses to NSW, saying the government’s aim was to reduce Covid deaths.

'As we have had outbreaks, we have prioritise those areas to save lives,' Mr Hunt told reporters.

'The critical thing here is to save lives and protect lives.

‘Every state and every territory receives a per capita allocation, and where there an outbreak, as we did with Victoria, which we prioritised when they had an outbreak, we made sure that saving lives has been at the heart of what we are doing'. 

Only 90 of the 246 new cases were linked to known cases and outbreaks and 156 are still under investigation.

The race is on to get all all students in their final year of high school injected with at least one vaccination dose before their final exams, as part of a 10-day priority access scheme beginning on Tuesday. 

Pfizer bookings opened for year 12 students, teachers, exam supervisors and assessors on Monday, with a dedicated hotline fielding 30,000 calls before lunch.

By Monday afternoon, the health department said more than 7,000 priority bookings had been made.

A 17-year-old on a ventilator is among the 110 Victorians in hospital with Covid.

Victoria's tally of active Covid cases has grown to 1786.

'There's 110 people in hospital, 30 of those are in ICU, 14 on a ventilator,' Premier  Andrews told reporters

'To give people a clear sense and hopefully remove any doubt this is everybody's business, the age range of those ventilated patients is 17 years of age through to 76 years of age.'

Mr Andrews said none of the hospital patients were fully vaccinated and urged Victorians to get whatever vaccine available to them now.

'These vaccines are safe and they protect you against a very, very serious illness that isn't just about having underlying conditions,' he said.

'Perfectly healthy people are becoming very unwell as a result of contracting this virus.

To help get more shots in more arms, the state will increase capacity, adding 40,000 vaccination appointments each week to state-run hubs.

More cubicles will be added to Melbourne Town Hall and Port Melbourne Town Hall.

Vaccination centres will be created at Latrobe University and more cubicles also added to the Melton drive-through hub.

More than 43,858 Victorians came forward for testing on Monday while another 32,300 rolled up their sleeves for the jab. 

With Melburnians expected to remain in their sixth lockdown until October, restrictions remain on track to ease in regional Victoria with the exception of Shepparton.

Mr Andrews said an announcement about regional Victoria will be made 'soon'. 

He hasn't ruled out students returning to classrooms in term four but says it's too early to make a decision at this stage.

Two apartment blocks in Plummer Street, Port Melbourne have been declared tier one exposure sites after an infected person or persons went to the premises between August 31 and Monday.

Residents must get tested and isolate for 14 days.

Melbourne will remain under tough lockdown restrictions until at least 70 per cent of eligible Victorians receive their first vaccine dose.

Victoria has hit 60 per cent first dose coverage and is expected to reach the 70 per cent target by about September 19, sooner than the government anticipated.