Box institute, Higher education in Mont Albert, Australia

Canberra, Jan 15 A scientist who led the development of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine on Friday warned Australia against delaying its rollout.The Australian and New Zealand Society for Immunology recently called on the Canberra government to pause its planned rollout of AstraZeneca's coronavirus vaccines, saying it may not be effective enough to generate herd immunity to the virus, reports Xinhua news agency.In response, head of the Oxford Vaccine Group Andrew Pollard said that the focus should be on the vaccine's ability to prevent serious illness or death from COVID-19 rather than its capacity to stop transmission of the virus."Having a supply of vaccines today and getting them into people's arms is what will save lives. That to me has got to be the absolute focus," he said, according to The Sydney Morning Herald on Friday."The one hard bit of data we have for all the vaccines is that people who are vaccinated do not end up in hospital from Covid-19 and we've seen that consistently from our trials."The Australian government has agreed to purchase 53.8 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine pending approval by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA).Some experts cited trials of the vaccine that found it was 62 per cent effective at preventing Covid-19, compared to about 95 per cent for vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna.Pollard said that the impact of a vaccine could only be determined "when they're in people's arms"."We don't have any possibility of herd immunity without having high levels of vaccine coverage and nowhere in the world has had that happen yet," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.Australian Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly on Wednesday dismissed calls to postpone the rollout, which is set to begin in mid-February.Australia has so far reported 28,658 confirmed coronavirus cases, and the numbers of locally and overseas acquired cases in the last 24 hours were zero and 10 respectively, according to the latest figures updated by the Department of Health. ( With inputs from IANS )Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor

Box InstituteFOLLOW

Box institute, Latest News

Washington Sundar on Sunday registered the highest individual score for a debutant batting at number seven in Australia. ...

Australia head coach Justin Langer has said that it is disappointing to see cricketing action coming to a halt due to wet outfield or "soggy grass". ...

Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane lost their wickets in the first session on day three of the ongoing fourth Test as Australia gained an upper hand against India on Sunday here at the Gabba, Brisbane. ...

While Indian cricketers were facing racial abuse at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) in the third Test against Australia, an India supporter has now said that he was racially profiled and abused by a mid-ranking security officer in the stands. ...

Sydney, Jan 16 Even as authorities at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) are investigating reports from the Indian ... ...

Two positive Covid-19 cases were reported on a charter flight on Saturday carrying tennis players and officials to Melbourne ahead of the Australian Open. ...

As Rohit Sharma gifted his wicket on day two of the ongoing fourth Test against Australia at Brisbane, former skipper Sunil Gavaskar on Saturday did not hold back on his criticism and said that there is no excuse for Rohit to be playing that kind of ...

Canberra, Jan 15 A scientist who led the development of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine on Friday warned Australia against ... ...