The National COVID-19 Commission, through member Jane Halton, is also of the same view. "The trick now is for people to calm down a little bit and get back to basics." Prizer would be the stand-in hero here. Think, warbles Halton, that "there will be 40 million doses in total" of it.
The current state of calm, understanding of basics, and methodical application means that a further two years will be required for Australians to be fully vaccinated. Daily tallies such as 27,209 are a far cry from the suggested number put forth by epidemiologist Mary-Louise McClaws, who opines that a total between 100,000 and 120,000 would be eminently more suitable.
AstraZeneca's future is not promising in other respects. The European Medicine Agency is currently reviewing reports on a possible cause of capillary leak syndrome. Other drug titans are also not being spared scrutiny, with Johnson & Johnson's own Janssen vaccine potentially being tarnished by the same blood clot problem. "At present, no clear casual relationship has been established between these rare events and the Janssen COVID-19 vaccine," stated the company in an email.
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The damage, certainly in terms of public relations and the vaccination program, deepens. But in Australia, the issue cuts deeper. Bureaucratic incompetence has become the Siamese twin of unoriginal selections and poor supply lines. With the State governments having performed the lion's share of the work protecting populations from COVID-19, the Federal government has shown various, fabulous ways of soiling the stable. A near future of closed borders, snap lockdowns and an increasingly enfeebled economy, seems likely.
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