Australia: First locally made AstraZeneca COVID vaccine doses rolling out from March 22

The Australian-made vaccine will begin to be rolled out on March 22.(Reuters: Gareth Fuller)

The first locally produced doses of the AstraZeneca vaccines will be administered in just over a fortnight.

Speaking after a meeting of National Cabinet, Federal Health Department secretary Brendan Murphy said the CSL facility in Melbourne was on track to deliver the first batch of doses in the week starting on March 22.

“A million doses-plus a week, which gives us the capacity to really ramp up and broadly vaccinate our population as quickly as possible,” he said.

The vaccine has been approved for use in Australia, but the initial 300,000 doses were produced overseas.

The second delivery of AstraZeneca vaccines has been delayed because of export controls imposed by Italy and the European Union.

Both health authorities and the Prime Minister have said the delay will not impact the vaccine rollout in Australia.

Scott Morrison said the government “always anticipated” that a problem like this might arise.

“That’s why we’ve done a number of things, the most significant of which is to ensure that we have our own domestically produced vaccine,” he said.

“We’re one of the few countries that have done that.

“This particular shipment was not one we had counted on for the rollout, and so we will continue unabated.”

Mr Morrison acknowledged that the COVID situation in Italy was vastly different to the one here, with people dying “at the rate of 300 a day”.

“So, I can certainly understand the high level of anxiety that would exist in Italy and in many countries across Europe,” he said.

Flight caps remain, Howard Springs capacity doubles

The Prime Minister said the group of state and territory leaders did not decide to lift the cap on international passenger arrivals, other than the expansion of the Howard Springs quarantine facility.

Mr Morrison said he had “regularly” asked Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews when the state planned to raise the number of international arrivals.

“The Premier advised me today he hopes to soon be able to provide a response to that,” he said.

ABC