Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews emphatically rejected calls for a reduced number of international arrivals to be allowed into Australia despite three Premiers, including Annastacia Palaszczuk, blaming the policy for the spread of COVID-19.

Palaszczuk said Australia had entered a “pressure cooker” moment and arrival caps had to reduce so the country could get on top of the highly-infectious Delta strain of coronavirus which has plunged 12 million Australians into lockdown.

But Andrews said the first reponse should not be to close borders.

“We need to learn to live and to work in the COVID environment in which we find ourselves,” she told reporters on the Gold Coast.

Andrews said weekly caps of about 1000 passengers entering Queensland and 3000 coming to NSW were not large.

And she blamed the rise in COVID-19 cases in Queensland on the state’s failure to ensure health workers were vaccinated.

“When they have their own failure that they can’t manage, they are very quick to jump up and down, try to blame the Commonwealth Government and then demand that borders be down or that caps be reduced,” Andrews said.

“Quite frankly, Queenslanders can see these claims for exactly what they are – they don’t stack up, they are a smokescreen, and quite frankly the Premier needs to get on with managing the state.”

Earlier, Deputy Premier Steven Miles revealed the hospital patient was a frequent traveller to and from Indonesia, the worst-hit country in the region, and “allowed to come and go” by the Commonwealth despite not being vaccinated.

“Last month, 20,000 non-Australians arrived in Australia, half of those on short-term temporary visas,” Miles said.

“We have no idea how many of those people are vaccinated. We do know that many of those people will have COVID-19. The borders are not genuinely closed.”

Meanwhile, the Federal Government says other states would have to give up doses of Pfizer in order for Queensland to ramp up its response to the latest COVID-19 outbreaks.

The risk of blood clots associated with the AstraZeneca vaccine has Pfizer still being recommended for the under-60s.

In Queensland, particularly given its indigenous communities where the population is younger, that has led the State Government to establish more Pfizer hubs, with frontline workers and the most vulnerable still given priority.

An unvaccinated receptionist at Brisbane’s Prince Charles Hospital – which has previously struggled to secure enough Pfizer doses for health workers making appointments – recently caught the Delta variant from an infected traveller. A large number of health and aged care workers remain unprotected, and the virus has leaked out of hospital and hotel quarantine, prompting a three-day lockdown.

Defending efforts to vaccinate frontline workers, Health Minister Yvette D’Ath on Tuesday revealed Queensland’s request for an increase in Pfizer doses had been rejected by the Commonwealth.

That is despite a record number of people being vaccinated in Queensland yesterday and the state now using second Pfizer doses on new patients rather than setting them aside for those who have already received their first jab.

While Victoria was given an extra 100,000 Pfizer doses to deal with its recent outbreak, Queensland has been told to make do with its weekly supply of 64,000 doses. D’Ath said the state only had eight days’ supply and had requested an emergency increase of 152,100 doses to meet demand.

“We weren’t offered less than what we asked for, we have been denied any extra vaccines,” D’Ath said.

After a National Cabinet meeting on Monday, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said “all the available Pfizer vaccines are being distributed to all the states and territories” but there were 290,000 AstraZeneca doses available.

In a letter to Queensland Health overnight, the head of the National COVID Vaccine Taskforce, Lieutenant General John Frewen, could offer only AstraZeneca.

“I am not able to approve your request for additional Pfizer doses at this stage,” Frewen told Queensland Health director-general John Wakefield.

“This request could only be approved by seeking stocks from other jurisdictions, from per capita allocations. Should you consider it critical to bring forward a proposal for a re-allocation from other jurisdictions to Queensland, this would need to be considered by National Cabinet.”

National Cabinet will meet again on Friday, with several issues unresolved, but health officials are expected to meet today to discuss the advice around AstraZeneca for younger people.

D’Ath questioned whether the Commonwealth was running out of Pfizer, suggesting “maybe this is why the Prime Minister has come out and suggested under-40s get AZ”.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has warned Queensland is in a “pressure cooker” situation and cannot wait for more Pfizer and Moderna vaccines to become available at the end of the year. She also wants a reduction of the allowed number of incoming travellers and dedicated quarantine facilities.

-with AAP