‘Vaccine nationalism’ will not help global COVID effort

Trade Minister Dan Tehan says reports the European Union has removed export restrictions is a very welcome change for Australia’s vaccine rollout and “wonderful news” for PNG who are battling of a coronavirus crisis. The trade minister told Sky News the EU had put in place export controls which limited the number of vaccines exported to Australia “but if the EU are now saying they’ve lifted those export controls that is wonderful news”. “My hope is that what we’ve heard from the EU overnight is those export restrictions are lifted and those one million doses that are so desperately needed in PNG will be on their way sooner rather than later,” he said. Mr Tehan pointed out the World Trade Organisation director general “said at the time that this was not the way we wanted to see countries or groups of countries ... behave”. “Vaccine nationalism was not going to help the globe and as a result of the EU putting in those export restrictions we’ve seen AstraZeneca not want to put in applications for fear of rejection because they were being rejected.”