Be considered – expert

ment introduced as an extra precaution at the border.

The Ministry of Health said the first lot of vaccines will be ready in the second quarter of this year.

National Party leader Judith Collins said with the highly infectious UK and South African variants showing up at the New Zealand border, it was critical border workers were vaccinated as quickly as possible.

‘‘Australia recently brought forward its vaccine rollout, with health workers, border personnel and aged-care residents at the front of the queue,’’ Collins said.

‘‘New Zealand has fallen behind the rest of the world with its vaccine programme and the Government needs to explain why.’’

She said Canada had enough vaccine to cover each citizen five times over.

‘‘Meanwhile, we’ve heard nothing from our Government.

‘‘We need to know how many doses they’ve ordered, when they’re arriving and if the whole thing can be fast-tracked.

‘‘Kiwis are rightly asking why Australia has plans to vaccinate 4 million people by the end of March while New Zealand won’t start vaccinating the general public until at least July.’’

The Government has secured various deals for vaccines, including for 7.6 million doses from AstraZeneca (enough for 3.8 million people), 10.72 million doses from Novavax (enough for 5.36 million people), 750,000 courses from Pfizer/BioNTech, and 5 million from Janssen.

If the vaccines are proven to be safe and effective by Medsafe, then priority will be given to vaccinate border workers, essential staff and their household contacts.

‘‘This is a very serious situation.’’ Nick Wilson Epidemiologist