Scott Morrison says Omicron won’t ‘take us back’ to Covid restrictions as he announces Moderna deal
The prime minister, Scott Morrison, says the emergent Omicron variant will not “take us back” to more Covid-19 restrictions, and Australia is now prepared to open up and live with the virus.
Announcing a deal with Moderna and the Victorian government that will see a new manufacturing facility built in Melbourne by as early as 2024, Morrison said the country’s high vaccination rate meant Australia could “continue to move forward”.
“We’re not letting Omicron take us back,” Morrison said.
“We’ve decided as a country to live with this virus and Australians have worked so hard for that.
“Australia can now open up. This Christmas we’re about to have is a gift Australians have given to themselves by the way they’ve worked together with the settings that we’ve put in place.”
Morrison also conceded the Coalition had made mistakes during the pandemic, including in the early phases of the vaccination rollout, but said these had been overcome.
“When you’re in a crisis, it’s not unusual to have setbacks, [but] the proof of managing a crisis is being able to overcome them, and we did overcome.”
Morrison and the acting Victorian premier, James Merlino, announced the in-principle agreement with Moderna for the new mRNA facility in Melbourne on Tuesday morning, with the aim of production by 2024.
The long-term “strategic partnership” between the federal government, Victorian government and Moderna will allow 100m mRNA vaccines to be produced in Australia each year in a pandemic, starting in 2024 “pending regulatory and planning approval”.
The new mRNA manufacturing facility will produce respiratory vaccines for potential future pandemics and seasonal health issues such as the common flu.
The government is refusing to say how much it is paying the pharmaceutical giant, saying the details are commercial in confidence.
Labor frontbencher Ed Husic criticised the government for taking so long to announce the new mRNA facility, while Queensland treasurer Cameron Dick said it should have been done earlier and it was “a shame Queensland wasn’t considered”.
Pre-empting the criticism, Morrison said the government had “spent the time to get it right”.
“This is not an arrangement that you just rush into and do a deal in a coffee shop somewhere. This is something you do the meticulous work on.”
Merlino said Victoria was the “logical place to do it”, pointing to the state’s large biotech industry which comprises 40% of the nation’s medical tech and biotech companies and accounts for 60% of the nation’s pharmaceutical exports.
“And you think about what this means – national security in terms of vaccine supply, and when you think about mRNA, this is a huge announcement because this is the first time in the southern hemisphere we’ll have mRNA manufacturing based in this nation.”
The move to establish a sovereign manufacturing capability comes almost a year after experts urged the Australian government to establish such a facility in Australia to reduce the country’s reliance on overseas producers, and follows sustained criticism of the Coalition’s vaccine procurement strategy that caused initial delays to the rollout.
Australia became heavily reliant on overseas produced mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna after the government accepted advice from the Australian technical advisory group on immunisation (Atagi) in April that the Australian-produced AstraZeneca jab should be avoided for those under the age of 50. It did so because of the extremely low risk of a rare blood clotting complication.
After the federal government engaged business consultants McKinsey to develop a business case on local mRNA manufacturing last year, the government sought expressions of interest from potential bidders for endto-end production of mRNA vaccines in May this year.
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The health minister, Greg Hunt, said the government was “looking forward to finalising the agreements with Moderna as soon as possible”.
“Ensuring Moderna has a manufacturing presence here will deliver Australia priority access to products manufactured here in Australia, by Australians, for Australians, using the most cutting edge vaccination science available in the world today,” he said.
The announcement comes after the government cut the time for Covid-19 vaccine booster shots from six months to five in a bid to keep people protected against the virus as the Omicron variant spreads, and approved Moderna as a booster shot.
Moderna’s mRNA vaccine was first approved by the Australian government in August for all adults, with a total of 10m doses ordered for 2021, and a further 15m booster doses ordered for the first half of 2022.
This year’s budget allocated an unspecified amount of funding to help create large-scale manufacturing of mRNA vaccines in Australia, with details kept secret because of commercial in-confidence negotiations.
The total budget allocation for the distribution and administration of Covid-19 vaccines over the next five years is $1.9bn.
In order to promote the development of an mRNA sector in Australia, the Australian government will also invest up to $25m from next year for what it has called an “mRNA Clinical Trials Enabling Infrastructure Grant
Opportunity”.This funding will support Australian medical research and medical innovation projects that “leverage and enhance emerging technologies, platforms, equipment and infrastructure to conduct clinical trials of mRNA-based vaccines and therapeutics”.
Labor, which has long been arguing that Australia needs a sovereign mRNA manufacturing capability, announced in April that it would prioritise such a facility under its proposed National Reconstruction Fund if it formed government.
Both the NSW and Victorian governments have also announced plans to progress mRNA vaccine development in their states, with the NSW premier, Dominic Perrottet, announcing last month the state would commit $96m to a pilot facility.
The Victorian government announced $50m for the development and manufacture of mRNA vaccines in April.