Joe Biden’s Covid response adviser says Australia wasn’t as aggressive as it could have been

US President Joe Biden’s former top Covid adviser has explained why Australia has fallen behind in the global search for vaccines.

US President Joe Biden’s former top Covid adviser has said Australia was “not as aggressive as it could have been” in procuring vaccines, and we now need to be patient in our fight against the Delta strain.

Andy Slavitt, whose temporary role as White House Covid response co-ordinator ended last month, said Australia had taken a laid-back approach in the “global search for vaccines” and that the country now has “acceptance issues” with the Oxford-AstraZeneca shot.

“I think people need to be patient because there will be enough vaccines soon and eventually we’ll get there but people need to be very careful because the Delta variant is quite contagious,” he said.

According to Mr Slavitt, the US’s success in procuring an oversupply of Covid vaccines came down to the White House’s “close relationships with manufacturers” and a focus on vaccinating “all Americans as quickly as possible”.

In comparison, “Australia wasn’t as aggressive as it could have been”, he said.

“There have been some acceptance issues with the AstraZeneca vaccine in the country and that’s been challenging as well.”

Andrew Slavitt is an American businessman and healthcare advisor who served as the acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services from March 2015 to January 2017 and as a temporary Senior Advisor to the COVID-19 Response Coordinator in the Biden administration.

The AstraZeneca vaccine was to be Australia’s mainstay against Covid with the federal government aiming to fully vaccinate all 20 million adults by the end of October – until mixed messaging and disinformation caused a groundswell of resistance and distrust.

Australia also failed to obtain an adequate supply of the Pfizer vaccine and state premiers have complained about there not being enough to go around.

“I think people need to be patient because there will be enough vaccines soon and eventually we’ll get there but people need to be very careful because the Delta variant is quite contagious,” Mr Slavitt said.

Cars trickle through the line at the drive-in Covid testing site at Fairfield Showground in western Sydney. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Swift

Mr Slavitt’s comments come as some 14 million Australians remain under lockdown, including those in the country’s two biggest cities, Sydney and Melbourne, and just 14.5 per cent of the population has been fully vaccinated against Covid.

Fewer than one third of Australians have received the first dose, compared to 53 per cent in the UK and 49 per cent in the US.

Vaccines are broadly available in the US. To understand the significance of this, you need to talk to people in other countries.

I’ve spent much of the week talking to officials & media in Australia. Oh how they wish they were in the US. 2/

— Andy Slavitt 🇺🇸💉 (@ASlavitt) July 16, 2021

Australia didn’t buy enough vaccines and the one they bought has run into problems. They are low vaccinated & not likely to get vaccines until September. Cases are rising & they’re on lockdown.

Rough winter for them. (They believe winter is in July for some reason). 3/

— Andy Slavitt 🇺🇸💉 (@ASlavitt) July 16, 2021

Total Covid infections in Australia throughout the pandemic currently sit just below 32,000, and there have been less than 1000 deaths. But with new outbreaks caused by the highly-infectious Delta variant, Australians are realising that while the country has been an outlier in containing the pandemic, they are largely unprotected against it.

“Australia is now experiencing more risks than it felt like it had for some time,” Mr Slavitt said.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison addresses the media at a press conference at The Lodge about the vaccine rollout and its challenges. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

“It’s going to be a tough winter in Australia until there are enough vaccines to vaccinate everybody.”

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Scott Morrison addressed the country’s bungled vaccine rollout.

“We‘ve had significant challenges with this program, as many countries have, but what matters is how you respond to them,” he said.

“What matters is how you fix the things that need to be fixed and get the program doing what it needs to be doing and hitting the vaccination rates it needs to hit to ensure that we can get to where we need to be, where we want to be.”

Originally published as Joe Biden’s Covid response adviser says Australia wasn’t as aggressive as it could have been