The Morrison government insisted it had a plan, that Australia would be at the front of the queue when the first COVID-19 vaccines were released and that by October, the entire population would be inoculated against the deadly virus.
Six weeks in and the rollout is behind schedule, the government has already missed its own targets and is now facing sustained criticism about a strategy it spent months devising.
The Prime Minister believes this criticism is unfair and the problem is purely one of supply. AstraZeneca signed a contract to provide 3.8 million doses of its vaccine to Australia, but so far has only delivered 700,000.
That is beyond the government's control, he asserts.
But Scott Morrison may have invited criticism because it was he and his ministers who raised expectations about the speed of the rollout only to be less than transparent when they've retreated from their own ambitious targets.
This week, Morrison changed tack and, for the first time, conceded the shortage of AstraZeneca vaccines "had a significant impact on the early rollout" while revealing details of the diplomatic tussle to get the remaining doses delivered.
So, what was Australia promised?
In September last year, in the midst of a global race to secure vaccine supplies, Australia signed a contract with Oxford-AstraZeneca to provide 3.8 million doses of its overseas-produced vaccine by March.
But by mid-January, the first signs of trouble emerged.
AP: Ted S. Warren
)According to the Prime Minister, AstraZeneca told the government on January 17 that it would now be delivering 1.2 million vaccines (less than half the anticipated supply) by April, partly in response to the European Union's threats to block vaccine exports.
The government didn't tell the public at the time, though, Health Minister Greg Hunt alluding only to a "supply shock" in a press conference, in response to a journalist's question.
What happened next?
Armed with this new advice, Australia asked the EU in February to export the first 500,000 of those doses, which had been made in Italy.
It's now been revealed that application was rejected by the EU on February 20 and the government told to submit a revised request for 250,000 doses. Australia followed that advice only to have the shipment blocked a fortnight later.
The news was first reported on March 5, that Australia had become collateral damage in a stoush between the EU and Oxford-AstraZeneca over the slow pace of production.
But none of the behind-the-scenes negotiations were made public and at the time, Hunt insisted the vaccine rollout would continue unaffected.
"We are very clear that this does not affect the pace of the rollout. That shipment had not been factored in to our distribution," he said.
We now know that this was the first public sign that AstraZeneca's contract with Australia would not be honoured by the EU and, contrary to Hunt's statement, it has affected the pace of the rollout.
The only AstraZeneca doses delivered from overseas, so far, have come from non-EU countries.
Where are we at?
As of April 7, about 855,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines had been administered, well short of the four million vaccinations the Prime Minister had expected to be delivered by now.
And only 60-70,000 Australians are being given the jab each day, below the government's target of 80,000 in the early stages of the rollout.
Compare that with the United Kingdom, which is averaging 500,000 jabs a day, and the United States, where the daily average is over three million.
The Prime Minister has sought to lay the blame entirely on the EU, which this week pushed back and denied it's blocked the remaining doses.
Morrison returned fire, calling out the EU and demanding they release the 3.1 million doses Australia originally ordered, a million of which would be sent to PNG.
"I'll be very pleased to write again, in parallel with AstraZeneca, to seek the export licences for the full amount of the doses," he said.
But it's not just the global supply issues slowing the rollout.
Melbourne's CSL facility, which began producing the AstraZeneca jab last month, has not yet achieved its target of producing one million doses each week. In fact, it has only released 1.3 million doses in three weeks.
The states, meanwhile, have complained that the commonwealth isn't giving them enough notice of vaccine deliveries and have warned that at this stage, they're unlikely to reach the October target, when all Australians are expected to have received their first jab.
Program set to accelerate
The federal government has assured Australians that it will reach that target and that in coming weeks, the vaccine program will start to accelerate as more GP clinics join the program and CSL ramps up production.
We are only six weeks into a months-long rollout and given the size and scale of the program, some teething problems were inevitable.
But much of the frustration can be put down to the fact that the government has not been entirely upfront about the state of the rollout when falling short of its own targets, be that from Hunt's early declaration Australia was "at the front of the queue" to receive COVID-19 vaccines, or the Prime Minister's aim to have the entire population fully inoculated by October.
The government has deliberately taken a more cautious approach than other countries and the vaccine rollout was always going to start slow before scaling up.
Given Australians are being asked to trust that strategy, the government might find it wise to be more transparent when circumstances change.
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2021-04-07 19:56:55Z
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