Australia may have lost early access to doses of COVID-19 vaccines that had been pro-actively set aside by companies as a result of the federal government's inaction.
In the early period of the pandemic, as companies raced towards the development of vaccines, they created what were essentially 'virtual' warehouses holding billions of yet to be manufactured doses.
Countries and organisations like the global COVAX facility were allocated a share of these 'virtual' doses based on a range of factors, including advice from their affiliates in places like Australia.
Yet these allocations were contingent based on the finalisation of formal agreements with the relevant country.
A company may have pro-actively allocated a country like Australia 20 million 'virtual' doses for delivery in the fourth quarter of the calendar year 2020 or the first quarter of 2021. However, in the absence of a formal and signed agreement, these doses scheduled for possible delivery would be lost and re-allocated to other countries that acted more quickly.
As a consequence, the country would need to re-enter the 'virtual' warehouse and be allocated doses with a later scheduled delivery date.
In response to questions at a public hearing of the Senate inquiry into the national COVID-19 response, Department of Health secretary Dr Brendan Murphy denied there was a 'queue' for the vaccines.
In fact, there was a queue and companies had even pro-actively allocated doses to Australia. The issue was that Australia did not formally join the queue for these doses until late last year by which time the potential delivery dates had already been pushed back.
Health minister Greg Hunt and the Department of Health have also denied the government adopted a 'wait and see' approach to the procurement of COVID-19 vaccines.
By the middle of 2020 as the development of vaccines quickly progressed, senior industry leaders in Australia were directly contacting Mr Hunt, his office, departmental officials and other senior members of the government including the prime minister's office expressing concern, exasperation and urgently calling for action because the delay in finalising the agreements on doses meant scheduled delivery dates were being pushed back.
The National Cabinet endorsed the government's vaccines procurement strategy in early August.
The government announced its first formal agreement in September 2020. The three-party agreement involving AstraZeneca and CSL was based on a combination of imported and domestically produced doses of the UK company's adenovirus viral vector vaccine.
In November, the government announced a deal for 10 million doses of Pfizer's mRNA vaccine, but the agreement was not actually formalised until 24 December. The agreement was subsequently extended to include an additional 30 million doses. To date, Pfizer has delivered according to its contractual arrangements but the majority of the 40 million doses are not scheduled for delivery until the second half of 2021.
The government announced deals for doses of the vaccines developed by Moderna and Novavax. Moderna, which has already delivered significant doses to the US and Canada, is not expected to deliver any to Australia until later this year. Novavax is not expected to deliver any doses until 2022.
All of these companies had formal deals with multiple countries before the Australian government even initiated negotiations for an agreement.
