COVID-19 vaccine rollout in Australia: Scott Morrison causes tensions with Boris Johnson
Scott Morrison has caused tensions with Boris Johnson by wrongly claiming that COVID vaccines were not tested in Britain pre-rollout.
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Prime Minister Scott Morrison has caused tensions with Boris Johnson after wrongly claiming that coronavirus vaccines were not being tested before they were rolled out in Britain.
More than 1.3 million people, including Australians working in the UK, have already been given life-saving coronavirus jabs.
Mr Morrison has been under pressure over his delayed vaccination program in Australia, insisting it will not start until March.
But instead of fast tracking the approval process for a vaccine in Australia, Mr Morrison has been defending his government’s hold ups by attacking the British program.
“They’re not testing batches of vaccines before they’re disseminated across the population, is my understanding,” Mr Morrison said on Melbourne’s 3AW on Wednesday.
“But Australia is not in an emergency situation like the United Kingdom. So we don’t have to cut corners. We don’t have to take unnecessary risks.”
However, in fact, there are 3.5 million doses of the Oxford vaccines that have been made but not yet distributed.
They were still waiting on batch testing before they were released.
Only 530,000 doses of the Oxford vaccine were made available when its rollout started on Monday, as the UK attempted to vaccinate 12 million people by the middle of February amid infection rates of 60,000 a day.
Mr Morrison’s comments were rebuked by the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.
In a statement, it said: “Biological medicines such as vaccines are very complex in nature and independent testing, as done by the National Institute For Biological Standards and Control (NIBSC), is vital to ensure quality and safety.
“NIBSC has scaled up its capacity to ensure that multiple batches can be tested simultaneously, and that this can be done as quickly as possible, without compromising quality and safety.”
A spokesperson for Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Wednesday night the vaccine rollout was a “complex process”.
“The Prime Minister welcomes the updated information,” the spokesperson said.
“His comments reflected his understanding of the situation at the time, as he qualified in his remarks.
“This is a complex process and Australia will be drawing on the lessons of the UK rollout and will continue to take advice and act with the information we have available to us.”
Mr Johnson’s government was the first in the world to approve the Pfizer vaccine and Oxford AstraZeneca vaccines.
The British government has insisted that all checks were done, with data reviewing as it came in, rather than at the end of the process.
Mr Johnson made clear that the safety checks were happening when the Oxford vaccine was launched on Monday.
“We have the capacity – the issue is to do with supply of the vaccine,” he said. “It’s not so much a manufacturing issue, although that’s part of it. Each batch needs to be properly approved and quality controlled.
“It’s not the ability to distribute the vaccine, it’s not the shortage of staff. It’s getting it properly tested. That will ramp up in the weeks ahead.”
Mr Morrison’s false claims were ill timed and come as the UK was trying to improve public confidence in the vaccines.
The UK and Australia were also deep in trade talks, however there have been tensions recently when Mr Morrison was not invited by Britain to speak at a climate change conference in December.
stephen.drill@news.co.uk
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