NZ’s vaccine rollout going ‘pretty well’ We should see things ramping up more steeply over the next couple of months, then in July we’ll shoot for the moon.

Vaccinating a majority of the world’s 7.8 billion humans is without a doubt the largest, most complex public health undertaking in history.

Yet here we are – a little over a year from declaring a pandemic – with more than 800 million doses of effective vaccines into arms at a current rate of more than 18 million per day.

It started slowly in December in just a few countries, and now 154 countries are at it. This rate is steadily increasing.

Each country starts off comparatively slowly and inevitably finds problems. As these are ironed out progress generally improves until the

Vaccinologist and Associate Professor with the University of Auckland’s Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences operation is like a well-oiled machine.

This all depends on sufficient vaccine supply, sufficient numbers of vaccinators, functioning systems and processes, and a willing population.

So how are we doing? New Zealand procured one of the best Covid-19 vaccines, Pfizer’s mRNA brew, which is one of the safest and most effective formulations. Enough doses have been arranged for everyone on New Zealand soil. Big tick on this one.

We started administering doses slightly ahead of predictions; another big tick.

In order to administer lots of doses of vaccine over a short period of time while not taking away resources from business as usual, such as the routine immunisation schedule, we need lots of extra vaccinators and helping hands. Many skilled and experienced vaccinators stepped forward to lend a hand to the cause.

There have been some challenges where willing people have found difficulty getting trained and employed at the front line. The path appears complicated, with too many agencies not communicating well.

Hopefully this is getting smoothed out.

The logistics in getting vaccine product from central storage into an arm are mindboggling. Various cogs include the Ministry of Health, 20 different district health boards, new staff on a steep learning curve, a new electronic immunisation register, and booking systems.

Of course, an additional complication is the fact that this vaccine needs to be kept super frozen, which necessitates freezers that chill down to -80 degrees Celsius. Once removed, the vaccine had to be used in days if stored in a regular vaccine fridge. Recently new data supported more flexibility in this rather rigid storage regime that will make things a bit easier.

There is no doubt that there have been some challenges

across all of these things. It was inevitable that there would be kinks needing to be ironed out given this is all pretty new and an enormous undertaking.

One of the frustrations until now has been a lack of transparency in numbers. It has been difficult to ascertain on any given day how many doses have been given, how many people have been fully vaccinated, where these vaccinations have occurred, and if this is on target.

It has also been difficult to determine how many vaccinators have been trained and are ready to go, and if they are where they need to be.

This has been frustrating, but I am pleased to note that progress can now be viewed online. It is actually looking pretty good.

Also, vaccine safety is being reported each week on the MedSafe website, providing excellent transparency and reassurance. I reckon this all deserves a tick.

We should see things ramping up more steeply over the next couple of months, then in July we’ll shoot for the moon.

If you find it hard to believe that we can get most people in New Zealand vaccinated against Covid-19 before Christmas, then keep in mind we regularly vaccinate more than a million people within a few weeks every flu season.

Last year it was 1.7 million, so we can totally do this.

Each week our average number of people vaccinated increases, and we see a pattern similar to those in countries who are doing well.

We began with a few hundred, progressing to more than 1000, increasing to over 7000.

It is clear that soon we will be into the tens of thousands.

All-in-all we are doing pretty well.

There are challenges to be sure, things don’t always work as intended, mistakes happen, and there is a phenomenal number of moving parts all trying to synchronise.

However, with some tinkering and a bit of patience I think we are going to do great.