MELBOURNE (AUSTRALIA) – Australia said on Sunday it has received 300,000 doses of the AstraZeneca PLC vaccine, double the number of all vaccines shipped to the nation so far. This allows the government to bolster its inoculation drive.
Mass inoculations for the nation’s 25 million people began on Monday when the first batch of more than 142,000 doses of the Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE vaccine arrived.
“We will now be able to scale up the vaccination rollout to our priority groups, including our most vulnerable Australians and to our frontline border and health workers,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison said in a statement.
As many as 4 million Australians are slated to be vaccinated by March and the prime minister is part of a small group which will receive the first dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.
Most Australians will receive the University of Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine. The weekly number of administered doses is slated to touch 1 million by the end of next month when CSL Ltd begins to locally produce 50 million of the AstraZeneca doses.
There were no new cases of the virus on Sunday, the 30th consecutive day so far in 2021. This year there have been no coronavirus-related fatalities.
About 200 people protested against the vaccination drive in front of the office of Health Minister Greg Hunt on Saturday. He said some of the people opposing the vaccines were spreading “false and clearly irresponsible” views.
“Australians have put their shoulders to the cause,” Hunt said about those who got the jabs. “The enthusiasm with which it has been taken up is a tribute to Australians.”