Scott Morrison responds to blame, defends vaccine rollout

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Scott Morrison says he does not accept that he is responsible for the delay in the deployment of vaccines and the simultaneous lockdown of three major Australian cities.

Greater Sydney is in the midst of a lockdown of at least five weeks, while the Melburnians learned on Tuesday they face another week at a minimum confined to their homes.

South Australia was also plunged into a seven-day lockdown on Tuesday, after the Delta variant spread from NSW to the state.

Speaking to Adelaide’s FIVEaa on Wednesday morning, the PM – who had not been seen or heard from publicly since the weekend – hit back after hosts David and Will told Mr Morrison ‘the reason for which you have 12 million people locked in is because you got it wrong (the deployment) in the first place ”.

“No, I don’t accept that,” Mr. Morrison said.

“Right now, no plan had a plan that said we would be at 65-70 percent immunization in this country. Under no plane.

“Australia was still going to be in the phase out this year.”

It comes after weeks of growing blame over the slow rollout of vaccines causing lockdowns across the country.

Earlier this month, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the state “couldn’t live” with the Delta variant when vaccination rates were so low.

“If we choose to live with this when the vaccination rates are at 9%, we will see thousands and thousands of hospitalizations and deaths,” she said on July 9.

As late as Wednesday morning, Deputy Prime Minister John Barilaro told ABC Breakfast that the vaccination rollout “is failing the state.”

“We need people to get vaccinated and we need the federal government to increase the supply… In NSW the demand exceeds the supply,” he said.

Mr Morrison was also asked if he regretted saying the vaccine rollout was “not a race.”

“I absolutely think we need to have total urgency on this issue, and that’s what we’ve applied to it,” he said.

“When it was said by both Professor Murphy and I at the time, we were talking about the regulation of vaccines… to make sure that the vaccines we were using had gone through the proper processes.

“The point is, we acted urgently… Once they were approved, we went as quickly as possible and got over the problems we encountered.”

Just under a million doses were administered over the past week, and more doses of Pfizer will be arriving this week to further accelerate the rollout.

Mr Morrison used the example of Singapore, which has a higher vaccination rate than Australia, being back on lockdown.

“And in the UK they are over 65% (fully vaccinated) and 94 people died yesterday,” he said.

“I understand that there is great frustration. Believe me, I feel the same.

“The Delta variant launched a whole new curve that every country in the world is facing.

“We’re not quite right, no country has done it … But we also have a lot of good things.”

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