Australian PM says expert panel responsible for slow vaccine rollout as Sydney extends lockdown

APD NEWS

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Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison blamed the expert panel on immunizations for the country's slow coronavirus vaccine rollout on Wednesday when the state of New South Wales (NSW) announced to extend the lockdown on the Greater Sydney for at least another two weeks.

Morrison said that "very cautious" decisions by the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) had "considerably" slowed the rollout.

ATAGI in June said in a statement that it recommended the COVID-19 Pfizer vaccine (Comirnaty) as the preferred vaccine for those aged 16 to under 60 years, which updated the previous preferential recommendation for Comirnaty over COVID-19 vaccine AstraZeneca in those aged 16 to under 50 years.

"The recommendation is revised due to a higher risk and observed severity of thrombosis and thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS) related to the use of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine observed in Australia in the 50-59 year old age group than reported internationally and initially estimated in Australia," said the statement in June.

Morrison told Nine Entertainment radio on Wednesday that ATAGI had "been very cautious and that had a massive impact on the rollout of the vaccine program."

"It slowed it considerably and it put us behind, and we wish that wasn't the result but it was," he said.

The government was relying on the domestically produced AstraZeneca vaccine to fully inoculate the Australian population, but has now secured an increased supply of the Pfizer vaccine to do so.

Responding to Morrison's comments, ATAGI co-chair Allen Cheng said the panel was "an independent expert committee."

"Based on evolving evidence, we've had to change that advice as new information became available," he told Guardian Australia, which reported on Wednesday that some experts pointed to the government's failure to diversify its vaccine portfolio as a cause of the failed rollout.

As of Wednesday afternoon, there had been 31,431 confirmed cases of COVID-19 reported in Australia, and the number of locally acquired cases in the last 24 hours was 98, 97 of which were in NSW, Australia's most populous state, according to the latest figures from the Department of Health.

(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)