Australia blames EU source issues for slow vaccine rollout
07 April, 2021
Australia's prime minister on Wednesday blamed restricted vaccine source from Europe for his country's halting coronavirus inoculation efforts, as he faced down growing public frustration over the sluggish rollout.
Scott Morrison said vaccine shortages and "strict export controls" introduced by the European Commission meant Australia received just 700,000 of a contracted 3.8 million doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine.
His government, which received global compliment for successfully containing Australia's coronavirus outbreak, has fallen much behind its schedule for vaccinating persons.
It had at first pledged to administer four million doses by the finish of March, but had instead managed about 850,000 shots by Wednesday -- drawing increasing criticism that Morrison tried to address at a good hastily organised press conference.
"I'm simply trying to explain to the Australian public supplying issues is what's constraining and provides constrained, particularly over the recent weeks, the entire rollout of the vaccine," he said. "3.1 million vaccines didn't arrive in Australia -- that's simply a inescapable fact," he said.
"It isn't a dispute. It isn't a conflict. It isn't an argument. It's not a clash. It's simply a simple fact."
Australia has reportedly received a good million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, which it really is administering to frontline workers.
But authorities had been counting on imported and locally built AstraZeneca shots to go over almost all of the population.
Trouble surfaced previous month when Italy blocked the export of 250,000 AstraZeneca doses since it struggled to handle a extreme coronavirus crisis at home.
Morrison's government said at that time the Italy move would not affect its total vaccine rollout plan.
But since that time, a wider debate across Europe in whether to export vaccines when EU countries are struggling to support the virus has further held up supplies.
Morrison said Wednesday he previously been reassured by statements from EU officials overnight that AstraZeneca export requests were appearing processed.
"So, if it's, indeed, the position of europe they are happy for these export licenses to come to be granted... then we'd encourage them to achieve that," he said.
Morrison said he was also still awaiting a great EU response to a great urgent request for a person million of Australia's AstraZeneca doses to end up being diverted to neighboring Papua New Guinea, which is facing a good worrying Covid-19 surge.
Early on in the pandemic, Morrison had boasted that Australia will be "at the front end of the queue" for vaccines immediately after a slew of deals with AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Novavax.
But public frustration over some of the rollout has been building and prompted angry exchanges the other day between your Morrison government and express officials tasked with administering much of the program.
"Australia is severely behind schedule with the vaccine rollout," complained opposition leader Anthony Albanese. "Scott Morrison must stop pretending like there is no hurry. Vaccinations will be our ticket back to normal -- the federal government needs to get yourself a move on."
Source: japantoday.com