Link: “‘Just a simple fact’: Australia raises stake in vaccine war with Europe”
Australia is under contract to buy 3.1 million AstraZeneca vaccine doses that have been manufactured in the EU, but the EU has blocked their export. OK, so Australia has hardly any Covid-19 cases, unlike Europe, so fine. But our near neighbour Papua New Guinea is experiencing a horrific wave of cases, so apparently our government asked that 1 million of these doses, that we’ve already bought, be sent there… and the EU is still refusing. They say we should our own domestic manufacturing capacity to supply PNG, even though that’s coming along at a snail’s pace. And the EU’s own export controls state that exports should not be blocked to low- and middle-income countries (PNG being one of the former), so… seems like they’re overreaching out of resentment against Australia, with PNG as collateral damage in the process?
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Jessica Smith on .