Australia's vaccination rollout a national embarrassment

Australia has seen public policy failures in the past, but none have been as disastrous as the country's COVID-19 vaccination rollout. The nation was stunned upon learning Australia is at the bottom of the list of OECD countries in terms of inoculation — as of the end of June, only 4 percent of Australians have been fully vaccinated. Due to a directionless policy, millions of Australians have been locked in and unable to leave while others have been locked out, desperate to come home. The country is going through its fourth lockdown, and millions of businesses have been victims of the incompetence of the current government.

Such ineptitude has received bipartisan condemnation. On one hand, Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk of the Labour Party censured the government, saying Prime Minister Scott Morrison missed the key moment to vaccinate the whole population and let the whole country down. On the other hand, Morrison's own Liberal Party's has seen former prime minister Malcom Turnbull also target the current government for its failure.

When we closely examine the vaccination rollout, the incompetency of the incumbent government appears from the very beginning. The Sputnik V vaccine was registered in August 2020. Since that time, instead of looking into it as an option Australia joined the club of those casting doubts on its success for political reasons, even though the promising results of the clinical trials were available in leading scientific journals. Similarly, when the UAE had inoculated its half of the population with Sinovac's CoronaVac, we were still attempting to score political points instead of actively engaging with other international partners. This failure not only falls on Canberra, but also our consulates and embassies around the world, who kept their eyes shut to important developments and failed in making positive connections with other suppliers.

The role of the country's media has also played an important part in this shameful episode. They jumped on the bandwagon to expose the clotting issues associated with the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine, but never highlighted the success stories of alternative suppliers. When a study by the Buenos Aires Health Ministry showed Sputnik V was the safest vaccine, this pertinent fact remained absent from the debate. The media chose instead to put all its focus on a possible deal with Pfizer. This narrowed the horizon of possibility and contributed greatly to the country's present failure.

After problems with the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine, the government has put all its eggs in one basket, Pfizer. That deal constitutes a compromise of national sovereignty, since there is no possibility of producing this vaccine in Australia, supposedly a fundamental criterion outlined by the government for any vaccine deal. Right now, the nation seems to be held hostage by a consortium of big pharma companies, government, media and foreign missions — and the people are paying the price.

The author is a former staff member of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and an independent commentator.

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