What made an emergency doctor ‘really angry’ amid concern over Australia’s slow vaccine rollout

An emergency physician has criticised the federal government for “not coming forward with the sort of information we need” as Australia’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout falls massively behind schedule.

In January, Prime Minister Scott Morrison set a target of four million vaccine doses administered by the end of March, but as of yesterday, fewer than 700,000 had been given.

Emergency physician Dr Stephen Parnis, says he’s not surprised the rollout has suffered setbacks.

“When you’re rolling out the biggest single public health measure for generations, the complexity is unavoidable,” he said.

“Having the cold chain supply sorted out so that it’s protected is relatively easy in central Melbourne, but trying to get these things out to isolated regional areas (is) not easy.”

But Dr Parnis said the federal government is not being forthcoming about delays with rolling out Australian-made vaccines.

“One of the many issues that have affected our rollout is that some was going to be made in Australia. That’s ramping up, but slower than we would like,” he told Ross and Russel.

“The federal government has not been coming forward with the sort of information that we need,” he said.

“The state governments have been impressive over the last year … I think the federal government needs to do the same.

“If you have an information vacuum it’s usually going to be filled with anything except the truth.

“The other thing that really got me angry yesterday was that a couple of federal government minister decided to dig the boot into the states and that was unacceptable.”

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