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Australia is working hard to ensure more vaccine supplies because the surge in cases has blocked its two largest cities.
Officials said that nearly 500,000 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine have arrived in Australia overnight. This is the first batch of exchange agreements with the United Kingdom. Australia is fighting a surge in cases to speed up its vaccination plan. More than half of its 25 million population has been put under lockdown.
Reuters reported on Monday that the vaccine had arrived.
People in the country’s two largest cities, Sydney and Melbourne, and the capital, Canberra, are subject to strict home restrictions. The government said that once 70% of people over 16 are vaccinated, these restrictions will be gradually relaxed.
Australia is under pressure to strengthen its vaccination program and reached an agreement with the United Kingdom and Singapore last week to provide a total of about 4.5 million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, twice the supply this month.
The head of the Vaccination Task Force, Lieutenant General John Friwen, said: “There will be another set of flights in a few days, but for the next four weeks, we will receive 1 million of the 4 million flights almost every week. .” Broadcasting company ABC.
Frewen said that 1 million doses of Moderna will also arrive in Australia within “about a week” to expand the launch of vaccines, including AstraZeneca.
More than 38% of adults in Australia are fully vaccinated, and based on the current vaccination rate, the country is expected to reach 70% by early November.
New South Wales is the epicenter of the latest outbreak, with 1,281 new cases reported on Monday, including 5 deaths. Victoria, including Melbourne, reported 246 new cases on Monday, the largest single-day increase so far this year.
Despite the recent outbreak, the number of coronaviruses in Australia is still relatively low compared with many countries in the world, with 61,600 cases and 1,039 deaths.
According to the vaccine swap agreement, Australia will return the same amount of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to the UK and Singapore later this year.
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