Government ahead of its vaccine target
Roughly 120,000 people have now been fully vaccinated for Covid-19 in New Zealand, Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins announced at yesterday’s weekly pandemic briefing.
Meanwhile, Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said the community Covid-19 case identified in Melbourne posed a low risk to New Zealand and the travel bubble would remain open.
The Government hit
107 per cent of its vaccine target to Sunday night, Hipkins said, and as of Tuesday night had administered close to 389,000 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.
New Zealand releases its vaccine numbers weekly, while most comparable countries release theirs daily.
The huge ramp-up of vaccines is not due to take place until July, however, when the Government will make every adult eligible.
Hipkins admitted he was ‘‘nervous’’ about that step last week. On May 1 another 1.7 million people became eligible for the Covid-19 vaccine, including all over-65s, but there are nowhere near enough supplies for all of them to get the jab immediately.
The Government had almost 380,000 doses on hand at the end of last week.
Hipkins said he expected to keep running down the vaccine stock to near zero before July, when large batches were expected to arrive from Pfizer. ‘‘We’ve been getting deliveries in the vicinity of 60 to 70,000 per week. We’re obviously delivering more than that now and so that number drops down week-on-week, and we expect that they will continue right the way through.’’
Hipkins discouraged people – even those eligible because of their age – from just walking into a clinic and expecting a vaccine, saying it was best for people to book an appointment.
‘‘Everybody wants one, which is great, very reassured by the fact that there is large demand for vaccines, but we certainly won’t have the supplies to be able to give them to everybody all at once.’’
He and Bloomfield said there was no indication from Pfizer that there would be any slow-down on vaccine deliveries because of the situation in India.
‘‘Pfizer have been incredibly reliable in honouring the commitments that they’ve been making. They are cautious about making sure that you know they’re not over-committing themselves,’’ Hipkins said.