Govt ‘locks down’ vaccine arrival

The Government is poised to announce new details about the arrival of Covid-19 vaccines and some likely refinement to its sequencing plans.

Cabinet is likely to be briefed today and announcements can be expected today or tomorrow.

Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said it had been difficult to give certainty about the sequencing of the rollout until there was certainty about their arrival. “Now we have locked that down,” he said.

The Government in December issued a broad outline of the sequencing in three groups — but debate has continued about whether the priorities were right and whether Ma¯ori and Pasifika groups and areas such as South Auckland should be identified as high priority.

As well, there are suggestions that one of the vaccines New Zealand has ordered, AstraZeneca, may be less effective for those over 65. The top priority remains the 12,000 border workers, most of whom had the Pfizer vaccine by the end of last week and the effort will turn this week to vaccinating their families and household contacts, and frontline health and emergency staff.

The general population, including the elderly, were scheduled to have their vaccine roll-out begin from June. But Ministry of Health director general Ashley Bloomfield last month said it wanted elderly in residential care to be given higher priority. And there have been calls for Ma¯ori to be given priority but the Herald understands that the sequencing will relate specifically to health status, rather than ethnic groups.