Australia will start COVID vaccine rollout 2 weeks earlier than expected: Health Minister

Australian Health Minister Greg Hunt announced that the coronavirus vaccine rollout will begin weeks earlier than expected. The vaccine rollout is expected to take place in early March. The government has aimed to vaccinate all the Australian citizens by October 2021. 

According to the reports by ANI, Hunt said, “We will continue to review the medical advice”. He added, “In the same way that advice has allowed us to bring forward the time from the first half of the year to late March and now early March we will be guided by the medical advice”. According to a tally by the Johns Hopkins University, Australia has a total of 28,536 cases with 808 fatalities. 

Read: Australian Minister: Fines For Not Wearing A Mask As New Rules Roll In

Canberra pushes enquiry

Recently, Canberra pushed to ensure the international enquiry into the early handling of COVID-19 pandemic and its reporting doesn’t pull any punches. While talking to The Guardian, when asked if the island nation was satisfied with China’s cooperation in identifying the origin of the highly-infectious disease, Australia’s health department spokesperson said, “Australia encourages all countries to engage openly and constructively with the evaluation process”. A move likely to further deteriorate the bilateral relations, Australia’s push for the independent inquiry being robust came when both nations are already at odds on a range of issues, including trade. 

Read: Asia Today: Australian States Reimpose Travel Restrictions

Vaccine situation in Australia 

Earlier, the Australian government agreed to purchase two more COVID-19 vaccines, increasing the count to 135 million doses in total to combat the COVID-19 infection. The Australian government signed an agreement for $1.7bn AUD ($1.24 bn USD) for early 85 million doses from AstraZeneca by January 2021. They also procured an additional 40 million vaccine doses from Novavax, and 10 million from Pfizer and BioNTech.

According to a release by BioPharma, Scott Morrison’s government has pledged free COVID-19 vaccines across Australia if trials for the experimental candidate by the University of Queensland are successful. The government has ordered the vaccines according to two doses per person and aims to manufacture doses in Melbourne. Meanwhile, according to an update by Indo pacific’s Centre for Health Security, Australia had pledged $80 million to the COVAX Facility Advance Market Commitment (COVAX AMC) for safe, effective, and affordable COVID-19 vaccines to be made available for 92 countries in the Asia Pacific region.

Read: Asia Today: Australian State Under Fire For Slow Response

Also Read: Australian Officials Name More Than 100 Venues As COVID-19 Hotspots In Sydney

(Image Credits: Facbook/GregHunt/AP)