Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Friday that his country is "very much on agenda" in charting out the COVID-19 pandemic through the four-step plan set at the start of July, despite recent outbreaks.

Speaking after a meeting with state and territory leaders at National Cabinet, Morrison said on Friday afternoon that the planned pathway out of COVID-19 leaders agreed to at the start of July was "on track" despite the "challenges" posed by lockdowns.

"I want to assure people that the path out of this and the four-step plan that National Cabinet agreed on some weeks ago is very much on our agenda," he told reporters.

"The work continues to chart that way out and the vaccination rates we will need to achieve over the course of the rest of this year and next year."

Under the plan, vaccinated Australians would slowly be given greater freedoms.

As of Friday millions of Australians in Victoria, including Melbourne, and Greater Sydney were in lockdown amid outbreaks of coronavirus.

Morrison said he supported the lockdowns of Australia's two biggest cities.

"The target here is to reduce as far as possible to zero the cases that are infectious in the community.

"States need to take the best possible health advice and do what is right for the interests of their citizens and the broad Australian population and I believe all states and territories are always trying to do that."

He announced that a new record of some 175,000 vaccine doses was administered on Thursday.

"In the space of just three days, half a million doses of the vaccine had been administered across the country," Morrison said.

"That means that already this month there have been just shy of two million vaccines."

(c) Xinhua

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