Yeah its spin, everyone might have had their first jab by October. 
Anyway all this is true to form for them, they're great at making announcements but deliver nothing to anyone but their donors.

Morrison promised 4 million doses by the end of March. We’re currently at 86,000.
Theyre also talking about some not getting their second jab until next year now. 

Morrison also said they'd be done by october today. Immediately contradicted by CHO.

Read that all Australians should have the jab in December at the latest . How did they stuff this one up ??

Vaccine rollout already up the creek.

Surprised as the master negotiators did so well on the world stage to convince leaders to take on facebook...

If I understand correctly there was some information and perhaps even misinformation about AZ and its effects and effectiveness for those over 65. The UK is using it in abundance whereas Germany put it on ice.

Meanwhile it's come out it's not a bad vaccine but those over 65 simply won't be getting it anyway. Sorted. Now that's led to every other age group asking if they can come in and get these AZ right away. 

Another thing is the FDA approval of the vaccine to be stored at regular fridge temps whereas Europe still seem to want to stick to the previous regulation of extremely cold freezing storage. Europe will surely loosen this but many weeks have been lost on indecision and red tape. 

I don’t think that makes sense since they are holding the AZ ones.

AZ is a good vaccine but we're supposed to be producing it locally at scales much higher than these shipments so its not the end of the world. As long as the people that can are at most risk of it getting into the community (i.e. hotel quarantine and other border workers) are getting the Pfizer vaccine then we can wait for local production of AZ to kick in (agree that it could have started earlier).

On protecting us from another outbreak, I don't think they're vaccinating family and other close contacts of the people I just mentioned. Whenever hotel quarantine has been compromised the contact tracing tries to get to jumps ahead and get them to isolate, i.e. immediate close contacts and the immediate close contacts' close contacts, so it makes a lot of sense to me to have them vaccinated too just in case its not effective on the odd person.

Arent countries like Italy,  belgium, germany etc refusing to administer the AstraZenica anyway,  from what I've read some countries have only administered 5% of what they have received because they would rather use the pfizer and don't trust the AZ.

https://www.ft.com/content/33f8ffd6-066b-449c-bf7e-edd51d661b19

Utter shambles here. It really is bad. Germany is just so far behind but I hope some miracle kicks in into gear because the logistics are there.

There are plenty of things to criticize about our Federal and State governments and their lack of leadership. I don't think managing this virus is one of them. This is each to their own. Australia isn't a major pharmaceutical player by any measure. We only have CSL. So in an ideal world, I also wish we would have the capability to cover ourselves and others, but that isn't realistic. To use your food analogy - we don't have the farms and we have purchased some food from a country who has a farm while we are building our own.  

I also wouldn't characterise the situation as Australia taking vaccines from Italy. We purchased the vaccines from AstraZeneca who manufactured these in Italy - the shipment would have very well come from the UK. As far as I can tell, the problem is the EU being slow/ineffective and AstraZeneca not being able to fill the EU orders - apparently they have only met 40% of the EU request. The move by the Italians is a sign of desperation and that's why I say it's frustrating but understandable. 

Well to give the government some credit we've committed to helping Pacific Island nations with the vaccine rollout:

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/how-australia-will-help-its-neighbours-to-vaccinate-people-against-coronavirus

I respectfully disagree, I think our nine months of sitting on our hands while so many suffer and die is terrible leadership, although I seem to be the only one ranting about this so perhaps I'm wrong.

One thing to keep in mind is that thanks to the states' efforts with quarantine we're in a position where we can indeed take our time with the domestic vaccine rollout, which is one thing, but I would have liked to have thought Australia would be the type of country that gets its shit together and flies planeloads of vaccines to other countries in need. Instead it's the reverse and we're taking vaccines from Italy, just like importing food from a country suffering famine. I wish we were helping.

I think it's too early to make that call. If we get to June and bugger-all Aussies are vaccinated then fair enough. 

I was more in general talking about piss poor roll out. 

Thanks. The ABC were reporting earlier this morning (article seems to have taken off the reference) that the AZ vaccine will be rolling off the CSL production lines in late March 2021. So it’s basically taken us an extra 9 months compared with the UK to manufacture. Personally, I think that’s a pretty good effort from getting the license, setting up your production line and getting the reagents. 

As I understand it, human trials of Oxford/AstraZenica began in April 2020 and mass production began in the UK in June.

Wouldn't that be why the government has ordered vaccines from multiple sources?  The government has already said this won't affect the rollout over the next few months.

Blaming scomo for this is about as silly as blaming D. Andrews for the hotel quarantine breaches that led to the 2nd wave.

Yeah, why blame the people in charge of ordering the vaccine and negotiating terms. 

You know part of being in the big chair is being ready for possibilities your trades and deals could throw up and throw at you. 

So no real Plan A, def no plan B, where the rest of the world has plan a, b, c, d......

Considering EU needs the vaccine farfar more than us got no issue regards the block.
They have a right doing so, as quoted in article :
"Italy is the first EU country to use the bloc's new regulations allowing exports to be stopped if the company providing the vaccines has failed to meet its obligations to the EU."
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56279202

Blaming Scomo isn't even worth discussion.

A bit pissed that Italy took this action, but understandable. I find it hard to blame ScoMo for this. Can you place a timeline for when local manufacturing in Australia started, or when it should have started? If there was anyone to blame, it would be Italy and the EU for not securing enough vaccine supply in the first place. At this point in time, no country has done enough to help themselves in terms of the vaccine.
 

Italy and the EU blocking 250k Oxford/AstraZenica doses made in Italy from export to Australia, and who can blame them, obviously the need is much more dire there. This is 100% on Scomo for not starting local production sooner. Frankly I'm ashamed that we were taking vaccines from places that needed them more than us in the first place; it should have been us helping others but we haven't even done enough to help ourselves.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-02/charting-australias-covid-vaccine-rollout/13197518?nw=0

You say some accurate things and then draw some really odd conclusions in places :(
There is absolutely plans to relax approaches we're currently using once vaccination is wide spread. They're not advertising it yet and it's going to be cautious because:
1. We don't know how well immunity will present itself with the new variants. Early evidence suggests that all approved vaccines prevent hospitalisation and death with all the variants but infection rates are higher with some. If people aren't dying then thats a game changer. We don't however have enough evidence yet on this.
2. There's a risk of people lowering their guard too early

There's going to be a case of observing what's happening overseas and here with outbreaks and gradually lower restrictions.

In regards to being finished by October. The TGA's advice for the AZ vaccine is to wait 12 weeks between doses (can be shorter but the best efficacy results are for that long). If thats the case everyone would need to have their first dose by July. 

Your maths is probably a bit off because there is no plan to vaccinate people under the age of 18 unless deemed absolutely necessary

The real issue with Australia's vaccination program is there is no plan for taking a step beyond a super cautious approach. The vaccine is simply a 10th or 11th layer of protection. You will still need to isolate if asked, be locked down if there is a single case, wear masks if Victorian, and also adhere to restrictions regarding live sport and gathering numbers

Everything Australia is doing today beyond quarantine at the shorelines, social distancing and contact tracing / isolation of close contacts is precautionary. This virus isnt caused by dancing. Large gatherings are simply a risk. As Australia vaccinates its vulnerable population it can start to accept more "risk" in terms of people moving about freely in a country where the actual viral activity is largely null (contrast this with countries that have large numbers of activity and will have tougher measures in place for months to come)

If October 2021 is simply the same as today except 90% of the agreed population are now vaccinated then we havent accomplished anything. Its not just the logistics of the vaccination plan that needs to be mapped out, but also what it means for the country as a whole and how we view the virus in terms of a risk

Sorry - that should have been 8 months

Gladys saying today that NSW might get it done before the end of October. Agree that it's a big logistical exercise.

Now that we are rolling out the vaccine it will be interesting to see how well that is done. 

The target is to finish by end of October - so basically 7 months. Assume that we are talking about  90% take up rate. to give 2 doses to that many people means that we need to give around 215,000 doses a day. Do we have a plan to do that. I doubt it.

I'm not going to be critical of you specifically but I find this highly offensive. The people who are supportive of the lockdowns and restrictions the most seem to be those who have comfortable work / school from home conditions, have kept their jobs, are economic and mentally sound, and can enjoy the time off

Nearly $3b was lost during this 5 day weekend and there are going to be a myriad of support packages and bail out packages to assist

Again, I'm not saying that you specifically have had it easy. I just think you need to understand that all restrictions large and small are taking its toll, especially considering Victorians have not gone a 3 week period between the last of the restrictions being lifted and new ones being imposed. And thats taking into account the ever shifting goal posts of our "COVID normal" which we didnt quite reach last year according to last years brochure but yesterday it was declared we did

Yes, I'm only speculating from the outside looking in. Not sure what the lead to produce a vaccine would be, but given the safety checks, need to scale up etc, I can see 6 months being a reasonable timeframe. I can see a lack of leadership or slowness in decision making holding things up but I can't see that being too significant.

This is a recent article about the challenges with the Pfizer vaccine which is an interesting read (different to the AZ one, but I imagine similar challenges exist): https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/health/2021/02/07/how-covid-vaccine-made-step-step-journey-pfizer-dose/4371693001/

We're also pretty well supplied (only Canada, the US and UK are better) according to Nature Magazine, and I'm pretty sure we will be sharing the excess around: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03370-6

I'd accept that answer if CSL or someone in the know gave it. Of course I'm far from an expert, obviously the testing phase would normally take years, but I'm only querying about production. Would a manufacturer who is already making other vaccines and drugs really need six months to be ready for production, or was the leadership (or lack thereof) the holdup?

Yeah I think we're providing a few jabs for the Pacific. I would have liked to have thought Australia was the kind of country that rolled up it's sleeves and made enough doses for Southeast Asia for example, on the house.