Having last year promised to put Australia at the front of the global coronavirus vaccination queue, Prime Minister Scott Morrison found himself under intensifying pressure over the pace of the rollout.

But Mr Morrison says that even if his Government had met its vaccination targets, the country would at this stage still be relying on lockdowns, testing and contact tracing to quash the virus.

In a July 8 media conference he claimed the Government's best-case scenarios for the vaccination rollout would not have allowed Australia to avoid the current strategy.

"The national vaccination plan that was adopted last year and all of the targets, even on their most optimistic scenarios, which haven't been realised, none of them put Australia in a position where a suppression strategy could have been lifted at any time, at least by the end of October," Mr Morrison said.

"So, the suggestion that somehow there was a vaccination rate that would have put us in a different position right now to what was planned last year is simply not true."

Exactly what did the Government say about the pace of the rollout towards the end of last year? And with Sydney battling an escalating public health crisis, what sort of position would Australia be in now if the original vaccination targets were on track?

The bottom line:

• Even meeting the government's most optimistic targets, the number of people vaccinated by July 8 wouldn't have been enough to avoid using suppression strategies like lockdown in NSW.
• But had the government delivered on its original timetable, experts agree NSW would have almost certainly been in a much stronger position, with less draconian measures needed to contain the virus.