It’s war: Scott Morrison in rethink on vaccines
Scott Morrison has put national cabinet on a ‘warlike footing’ to speed up the vaccination program, with Dan Tehan to fly to Europe for export ban talks.
Scott Morrison has put national cabinet on a “warlike footing’’ to speed up Australia’s COVID-19 vaccination program as Trade Minister Dan Tehan prepares to fly to Europe for talks on breaking vaccine export bans.
The Prime Minister, facing criticism over a lack of transparency and the slower-than-promised rollout, has asked national cabinet to meet twice a week from next Monday to get the program “back on track”.
“There are serious challenges we need to overcome caused by patchy international vaccine supplies, changing medical advice and a global environment of need caused by millions of COVID-19 cases and deaths,” Mr Morrison said on Tuesday.
“This is a complex task and there are problems with the program that we need to solve to ensure more Australians can be vaccinated safely and more quickly. I have requested that national cabinet and our health ministers move back to an operational footing — to work together, closely, to tackle head on the challenges we are all facing with making our vaccination program as good as it can be.”
The nation’s political leaders have not met as regularly as twice a week since early May last year, at the height of the coronavirus pandemic.
States are complaining about a lack of transparency on supply and have called for more involvement in mass-vaccination centres as timetables have been pushed back.
The Prime Minister’s bid to contain the political fallout after the government scrapped its October timeline for all consenting adults to have received their first jab comes as Mr Tehan prepares to tell his counterparts in Berlin, Paris and Brussels that export restrictions on vaccines “are not the way to go”. Mr Tehan will travel to Europe and the United Kingdom next week to try to progress free-trade deals but will also suggest greater private sector and government investment to increase vaccine production.
More than three million contracted AstraZeneca vaccines from offshore have not made their way to Australia after the EU imposed strict export controls. “What we need to be focusing on is how we all can collectively work together to increase production and to make sure contracts are honoured,” Mr Tehan said.
The Therapeutic Goods Administration is reviewing cases of blood clots that have occurred in people who have received the AstraZeneca vaccine after a second case of rare thrombosis associated with low platelet count was revealed in a West Australian woman aged in her 40s.
TGA head John Skerritt said more than 700,000 AstraZeneca vaccines had been administered but only two people had suffered the blood clots. “Your chances of winning Lotto are much, much, much, much higher,” he said.
Labor has called on the government to release a breakdown of the number of Australians who have received the AstraZeneca vaccine compared with Pfizer, while the union movement wants to know how many aged care and disability support workers have been immunised.
The government has ruled out purchasing Johnson & Johnson’s one-dose vaccine for the rollout, citing its similarity to the AstraZeneca jab. Last week, the government secured an extra 20 million Pfizer vaccines, which will likely be available at the end of the year.
Health Minister Greg Hunt said Novavax doses could be administered in Australia in the third quarter of the year, pending clinical trials and regulatory approval.
Conceding that many Australians would like to be further along in the recovery, Mr Morrison said national cabinet would meet twice a week for the foreseeable future “until we solve the problems and get the program back on track”.
There were 56,379 vaccinations in the 24 hours to 2pm on Tuesday, meaning more than 1.2 million Australians had been given their first dose.
“We are throwing everything at these issues, uniting the nation to keep the vaccination program safe, to get the rollout right, and to be open and transparent about how we are tracking,” Mr Morrison said.
As NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian and the business community warned that Australians risked being left behind as other countries reopened their borders and economies, Mr Hunt said vaccination alone was “no guarantee that you can open up”.
He said the government would consider the transmission of the virus among vaccinated people and the longevity of the vaccine once it had been administered.
Mr Hunt has a series of meetings scheduled with state counterparts and health chief executives to prepare alternative options to the AstraZeneca vaccine for under 50s. The government announced last week that the Pfizer vaccine was now the preferred option for Australians aged under 50 following medical advice on the blood clot disorder. “What we do know is that understandably people under 50 are following the medical advice, and accepting ATAGI’s (Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation’s) advice that did say (it was) preferred for people under 50 to have Pfizer,” Mr Hunt said. “We had anticipated potentially a significant drop, that’s not what we have seen at this stage.
“For the central part of phase 1B, which is the over 70s and 80s, and for the central part of phase 2A, the over 50s and 60s, that remains, at its core, continuing in that same manner and process.”
Labor seized on comments from business and industry groups demanding a new timeline for the vaccine rollout, saying that without one they could not plan their recovery with any confidence.
“It’s not good enough under pressure for Scott Morrison simply to retreat to Facebook,” opposition health spokesman Mark Butler said, in reference to the Prime Minister’s statement via Facebook on Sunday in which he revealed the October deadline had been scrapped. “He’s got to come clean with Australians about when and how they will be vaccinated. Business needs that and Australians need it for confidence.”
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