Two people were taken to Hawke’s Bay Hospital in serious conditions following separate crashes in the region on Friday.A police spokesperson said they were called to a motorbike crash at Ocean Beach at 2.30pm on Friday.The male…

Two climbers believed to have triggered an avalanche on Mt Earnslaw, near Glenorchy, this morning should count themselves lucky.A 26-year-old man was admitted to Lakes District Hospital having sustained a dislocated hip and injuries…

Andrew English was enjoying a day out on the water with his family in Sydney's south yesterday when he spotted a large shark swimming less than 20 metres away.

"I took the family out a swim, my wife and daughter were swimming in shallows when we spotted it," Mr English told nine.com.au.

In a video taken by Mr English about 2pm on the Port Hacking River near Warumbul, the shark swims along the water's edge and splashes as it chases prey.

READ MORE: Dog attacked by shark while playing in ocean

Mr Andrews said despite his four-year-old child and wife being close by, theshark seemed disinterested in disturbing them.

"It looked like it was about seven foot long."

READ MORE: Australia deadliest country in world for shark attacks in 2020

"It looked like it was just chasing baitfish and it wasn't interested in us but we out of the water pretty quick," he said.

Mr English said he rarely spots sharks while out on the water.

"It was pretty cool to see it up so close," he said.

Scott Morrison said Australia's coronavirus vaccination program is on track, with doses of the vaccine being made in Melbourne to roll off the production line "in a matter of weeks".

The prime minister toured the manufacturing plant for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine – one of two types of vaccine bought by Australia – at biotech firm, CSL in Melbourne.

"We are doing it here, in Australia, right here in Melbourne," Mr Morrison said.

LIVE UPDATES: Emergency vaccine ruled out for Australians

"That is something that few prime ministers and presidents around the world can say."

More than a million doses will be manufactured each week at the facility, with bottling of the vaccine planned to start on Monday.

The company is working around the clock until 50 million doses are ready but is still awaiting formal approval from the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA).

CSL said the first doses of its vaccine are on track for release in March.

Before the coronavirus vaccine leaves the manufacturing facility, scientists, "check it and they check it and then they check it again", according to the prime minister.

"When you go to your GP clinic or the place that you will go to get your vaccination, you can have great confidence, not just in the vaccine itself but the Australian production process," Mr Morrison said.

"It is another important day today, that final phase of that production process starts here Monday."

Production has been underway at the Broadmeadows plant since late last year.

From next week, the final manufacturing phase will begin at CSL's Seqirus facility in Parkville.

"We start our last phase of production on Monday in terms of getting those really important doses into vials and ready for final roll-out," General Manager of Seqirus, a CSL company, Stephen Marlow told Today.

"Our plan is we will have doses available for release at the end of March, which is fantastic. It is ahead of schedule so we are pretty pleased with where we are right now."

The vaccine is formulated to a precise concentration, before being repeatedly filtered and filled into vials ahead of labelling and packing, the company says.

At the same time, each batch of finished vaccine will undergo an extensive quality check process – by CSL, by AstraZeneca, and by the TGA.

He's confident approval by the TGA will come "soon", he said.

"The TGA have a job to do. They are thorough. We have world-class regulators and they will do their job. Certainly we are buoyed by news that the World Health Organisation recently approved the vaccine for older groups," Mr Marlow, said.

https://twitter.com/GregHuntMP/status/1357177408873373700?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

"The AstraZeneca vaccine has been approved in a lot of countries. We are getting good data from the UK so we are hopeful to get the approval soon."

The firm is expected to release two million doses at the end of March, and then one million doses per week.

The vaccine is "flexible" and could be adapted to suit other variants of the virus, he said.

Also, the CSL facility set to manufacture millions of doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine could switch to other more effective vaccines if necessary, Health Minister Greg Hunt has said.

"What we have learnt from CSL is that CSL can do just about anything," he said.

Meanwhile, the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines are set to arrive here by early next week after the European Commission formally approved a shipment to leave the European Union.

Earlier this week Dr Michael Pulch, the EU's Ambassador to Australia said Australian orders of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine would progress "as foreseen".

Older Australians and health care and hotel quarantine workers would be first in line for the jab, as soon as later this month.

Health Minister Greg Hunt confirmed the three stages of Australia's vaccination program are all on track.

"We are on track for the Pfizer vaccine to commence in late February," he said.

"On track for the AstraZeneca International – subject to the TGA's approval – to commence in early March.

"And most significantly, on track for the AstraZeneca/CSL, Australian-made vaccine to commence, as the Prime Minister said, in late March."

The vaccination program is set to be completed by the end of October.

So far, Australia is the only continent, alongside Antarctica, which has not started coronavirus vaccinations.

A driver who survived when his ute plunged about 21 metres off a slippery interchange exit ramp in Wisconsin said he feels thankful to be alive.

Richard Lee Oliver, in an interview that aired on Good Morning America, said he was on his way to his mother's house when his truck hit snow on the shoulder of a Milwaukee-area overpass.

“There was just too much snow on the side of the road that once the tyres got into like two foot of snow there’s no controlling a vehicle of any kind," Mr Oliver said.

LIVE UPDATES: The latest news from Australia and around the world

He was hospitalised with a broken back and a broken leg, among other injuries.

A Wisconsin Department of Transportation camera captured Saturday's crash in which the ute can be seen flipping over the a barrier wall and plummeting to the interstate below as cars pass by.

The truck landed upright on the right shoulder of the westbound lanes of Interstate 94.

Mr Oliver, the father of a six-month-old, said he is grateful to the two people who came to his aid, including a man who helped him make a phone call.

“He helped me in the bed of my truck and helped me call my mom just in case I wasn’t going to make it,” he said.

When sheriff's deputies arrived, they found the red pickup truck that had skidded off the ramp sitting upright in the roadway below.

"The vehicle travelled up a snowbank, proceeded over the barrier wall, and descended 70 feet (21 metres) down onto the westbound I-94 distress lane," the sheriff's office said.

The incident is just one of many that have occurred across the Midwest where snow, sub-zero temperatures and freezing rain have created dangerous, icy roadway conditions.

Milwaukee County Highways and Maintenance director Eddie Santiago said the conditions make driving especially dangerous.

"The biggest risk with that is the melting and the freezing creates sort of a ramp, a natural ramp," he said.

"The snow is hard as concrete, so a lot of our equipment is out there, basically chipping away at the, literally chipping away at the snow and ice to get that removed."

Icy weather creates dangerous road conditions

More than 41 million people remain under winter weather alerts that stretch from Oklahoma to Cape Cod, according to CNN Meteorologist Michael Guy.

In Oklahoma, freezing rain created icy roadways leading to more than 380 car crashes in the state by 5pm on Monday, according to the Oklahoma Highway Patrol/Department of Public Safety (OHP/DPS).

Early Monday morning, Oklahoma City Police warned in a tweet that cold temperatures had frozen over bridges, causing several crashes.

Two people died and people suffered injuries in at least 130 of the incidents Oklahoma State Troopers responded to, according to the tweet.

At least 20 cars were caught in a pile up on I-40, the main thruway of Oklahoma City, Monday, OHP Trooper Eric Foster said during a press briefing Monday.

Foster said that an unknown number of people were injured during multiple collisions along an icy bridge.

READ MORE: Photos taken 30 years apart reveal alarming retreat of giant glacier

Motorists are warned to expect delays on State Highway 2 (SH2) after a crash that is blocking the southbound on-ramp at Petone. A police spokesperson said the crash happened at 7.20am, and one person was said to have moderate injuries….

One person has serious to moderate injuries after a truck rolled in northern Hawke’s Bay on Friday morning.Police, firefighters and an ambulance were called to the crash on the remote Ruapapa Rd about 6.09am, a police spokeswoman…

A prominent real estate agent who police allege choked one woman before turning a samurai sword on another had taken four Viagra pills and had a “sexual intent” before the bloody ordeal at the $2 million home he shared with his former…

A skipper dove under an upturned vessel to open a hatch to help five trapped passengers escape when a boat capsized at Paterson Inlet near Stewart Island in 2019.A Transport Accident Investigation Commission report into the September…

A 27-year-old woman has become the fifth person arrested and charged in relation to the murder of Rau Tongia in the Wellington suburb of Karori late last year. Rau Tongia, 33, was found dead in his Karori home on December 20.The…