Vaccine stats reveal divide
A rural district is struggling to keep up with the vaccination rates of its neighbours, and one local farmer says this is because the rollout was done with urban people in mind.
Manawatū-Rangitīkei Federated Farmers president Murray Holdaway said rural residents were having to drive for up to two hours for vaccinations, unlike their urban neighbours, who had centres just 30 minutes away.
He said farmers were often too busy and worked harder, particularly with the labour shortage, and to forget this was unfair.
He expected rural vaccination rates to increase now that the busiest part of the farming season was easing, but noted that the traffic light system was hardly an incentive, with regional traffic unrestricted.
‘‘With no hard borders, I suspect people are going to live the same as people in other districts ... if a farmer in Taihape wants to take their stock to Feilding, nothing would stop them.’’
Rural communities untouched by Covid-19 were treating the pandemic the same way they did prior to it entering New Zealand, Holdaway said. It was hard to imagine the consequences when their day-today lives remained largely unaffected.
The Whanganui District Health Board has reached out to rural communities in a bid to increase vaccination rates, including at large workplaces and supermarkets, but large gatherings outside main towns have been few and far between.
In an interview earlier this month, the DHB’s vaccination team leader, Louise Allsopp, told Stuff it had internal vaccination targets, but these were informal. Formally, its goalpost was 90 per cent.
In Whanganui city, the DHB kept an active list of several clinics open throughout the day.
Across rural Rangitīkei, many vaccination clinics were pop-ups or open for just one or two days a week.
Rangitīkei mayor AndyWatson was surprised that his district was anointed red despite having no Covid-19 cases.
He said people should make the time to get vaccinated, and he was frustrated that his countless pleas for residents to do so were falling on deaf ears.
‘‘The reality is sad. People here, especially in our dairies, the majority aren’t bothering to scan in,’’ he said. ‘‘I don’t know if it’s complacency or what. [It’s] disappointing.’’
Watson said the low vaccination rates had a lot to do with the rural population.
‘‘It’s a large population, largely isolated on their farms ... reasonably remote. It’s quite an effort to get into Taihape or Hunterville, but they’ve been slack, really.’’
He said many people got vaccinated only when it directly affected their ability to do something, but they needed to think bigger.
‘‘The problem with being insular, it’s almost as though they are safe, but the risk is Covid can get in ... would they know?
‘‘That’s worrying.’’