Pfizer COVID vaccines arrive in Australia under UK swap deal

Australia is trying to secure more vaccine supplies amid a surge in cases that has locked down its two biggest cities.

Nearly half a million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine have arrived in Australia overnight, officials have said, the first batch of a swap deal with Britain that Australia is using to speed up its inoculation programme as it battles a surge in cases that has put more than half its 25 million population in lockdown. The Reuters news agency reported news of the vaccines’ arrival on Monday. People in Sydney and Melbourne, the country’s two biggest cities, as well as in the capital of Canberra are under strict stay-home restrictions that the government has said will be gradually relaxed once between 70 percent of people over the age of 16 have been vaccinated.