I've not heard much lately on how a lot of other countries vaccine programs are going. Is Australia quite far behind?

It's one thing the UK got completely right. They were ahead and proactive in both gelding to fund the development, and securing doses. It's also great to see that AstraZeneca are sticking to their goal of supplying their vaccine at cost and getting it into third world countries via increased manufacture in countries such as India. The UK first vaccines is now at 90% of the population and second doses are over 80%. They are also already looking at third boosted jabs for over 50s this autumn.

I really hope they pick up vaccine rates in other countries.
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Yeah it is playing catch-up that's for sure, I don't know the numbers, but it's pretty far behind the UK. The press were also quite irresponsible in reporting on the AZ vaccine, quite a lot of shit was heaped on it, and now there's surprise and hand-wringing over the fact that a lot of people now don't want anything, or will only consider the Pfizer.

There's a strong feeling that Australia squandered the early advantage they had. Things were looking very good for a long time but the past few weeks have seen a lot of restrictions and uncertainty.
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I did wonder what went wrong for Australia. As you say in the beginning they had managed to really contain the virus and keep it to a minimum. It really did come down to vaccines and achieving an early rollout.

I'm actually not quite sure on the logic of many wanting Pfizer over AstraZeneca. From what I've read Pfizer actually has more worrying side effects percentage wise. But in reality both vaccines have a very small percentage chance of possible bad side effects such as heart issues or blood clots are as low as 4 in 1 million, which vis really good odds.
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