Australia's Covid-19 inoculation programme to cost at least $4.8 billion, PM to say

01 February 2021 - 10:30 By Reuters
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Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
Image: REUTERS/Loren Elliott/File Photo

Australia's Covid-19 inoculation programme will cost at least A$6.3 billion ($4.8 billion), Prime Minister Scott Morrison plans to say on Monday.

Australia — which until Sunday had gone two weeks without any locally acquired cases of Covid-19 — is expected to begin administering vaccines this month.

Though it has pledged to spend A$4.4 billion to acquire enough doses for its 26 million population, Morrison will say that his government has set aside a further A$1.9 billion to pay for the rollout.

“The strategy is backed by an initial allocation of about A$1.9 billion in new support for the vaccine rollout. This is on top of more than $4.4 billion allocated for vaccines purchases,” according to extracts of a speech Morrison will deliver in Canberra on Monday.

Classifying the inoculation programme as his “priority,” Morrison will add that the country's economy must now begin to wean itself from government spending.

Australia has pledged more than A$250 billion in stimulus, which has already begun to taper.

Highlighting recent strong economic data, Morrison will say there is a limit to the support government can afford.

“We are not running a blank cheque budget,” Morrison will say in the speech.

Morrison's speech comes as the Australian city of Perth begins its first full day of lockdown after the detection of a Covid-19 case.

The person infected, a security guard in his 20s, was working at a hotel where four people in quarantine had active cases of the virus, including the highly contagious strains that have been linked to Britain and SA, local health authorities said.  


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