Govt tops nationwide target for Covid shots

The Government exceeded its nationwide Covid-19 vaccination target by almost 5000 doses last week, hitting 102 per cent of its planned goal.

But while many district health boards are meeting or exceeding their planned doses, some are lagging well behind.

The Northland District Health Board had given only about 62 per cent of its planned doses by the end of Sunday – 3760 doses fewer than its target. Lakes District Health Board, which surrounds Rotorua, was also well behind at

76 per cent of its target, or around

1445 fewer doses than planned. These misses are masked in the national data by the overperformance of some other health boards, such as Whanganui, Nelson-Marlborough, Hawke’s Bay, MidCentral and Bay of Plenty, all of which topped 130 per cent of their targets.

Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said he had asked the Northland board for an explanation for its low figures, and noted that it was opening up its vaccines for more of the population. The health board has opened walk-in clinics for over-50s – who aren’t technically eligible for the vaccine yet – as it has seen low demand from those eligible.

The Government announced the figures at its weekly vaccine update yesterday, saying the rollout was staying above pace for the current week.

Just over 232,000 doses have been administered, with over

60,000 people receiving both doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine – the only vaccine currently allowed in New Zealand.

The country has enough of the Pfizer vaccine ordered to cover all over-16-year-olds, but is likely to use other vaccines to cover those allergic to the Pfizer jab.

Bloomfield said about 95 per cent of the frontline border workforce had been vaccinated. Those who don’t get vaccinated by May 1 will be shifted into other roles.

New Zealand now has 685,620 doses of the Pfizer vaccine in the country, or enough to vaccinate more than 342,000 people.

Currently, the only people eligible for the Covid-19 vaccine work or live with someone who works at the border or in healthcare, or live in ‘‘high-risk’’ places.

This means many of those eligible are in the wider Auckland area. The health boards there hit

97 per cent of their target.

On May 1, the Government will make eligible all over-70s and others who may become seriously ill from Covid-19 – roughly

1.7 million people. It is expecting to double its vaccination rate from its current average of about

50,000 doses a week to 100,000 doses a week in June.