Deals wrapped in hope and caution
Having four vaccines, comprising three different technologies, has effectively spread New Zealand’s risk.
It’s an early Christmas present with delayed gratification and a wrapping of caution. But the Government’s securing of two further pre-purchase agreements for Covid-19 vaccines, announced yesterday, has delivered a dose of hope near the end of a rollercoaster year.
The deals with pharmaceutical companies Astra-Zeneca and Novavax add to previous agreements with Pfizer/BioNTech and Janssen, and bring New Zealand’s proposed vaccine stock to about 15 million courses, providing insurance should one or more of them fail.
They also provide sufficient for Pacific Island countries, both those for which New Zealand has direct responsibility, such as the Cook Islands and Niue, and others such as Samoa, Tonga and Tuvalu, if they wish to take up the offer. Stepping up, with Australia, to support the islands that have kept Covid out at the cost of their vital tourism industry is a positive contribution to our regional leadership role.
Yesterday’s announcement has also provided some welcome, though still imprecise, information over the timing of vaccinations. The plan is to give New Zealand border and frontline healthcare workers the first shots in the second quarter of next year, and the general population in the second half of 2021.
Some are critical of the delay, given that vaccinations are already under way in Britain, the United States and other countries, but there may well be benefits to New Zealand in waiting, particularly with our current absence of community transmission.
Just as the country gained from the lessons of early pandemic actions and inaction overseas, so we can learn from the effectiveness and safety of the different vaccines over the next few months.
Having four vaccines, comprising three different technologies, has effectively spread New Zealand’s risk. While some have been given approval for emergency use in Covid-ravaged countries, they have yet to complete final clinical trials to assess efficacy and side-effects. Among the wider unknowns are whether the vaccines can block transmission of the virus, and how long their protection lasts for.
There might not be definitive answers on all these questions by the time New Zealand launches its programme, but there will be valuable insights, including lessons about the rollout itself, which will be the biggest immunisation in our history. The Government will want to avoid a repeat of issues earlier this year over the distribution of flu vaccines, when some high-risk patients were turned away because GPs could not meet demand, even though there was sufficient stock nationally. It is also likely to have to contend with disinformation from anti-vaccination groups, although, thankfully, New Zealanders do not have the same lack of trust in science and healthcare that has fractured the US response to the pandemic.
The biggest note of caution is sounded by University of Otago’s professor of public health, Michael Baker, who hopes the vaccine announcement doesn’t add to the complacency that has inevitably crept back with no community outbreaks.
Our guard is likely to be further lowered as the summer holidays take hold, at the same time as large numbers of Kiwis are returning into managed isolation from high-risk countries.
It’s a timely reminder that keeping up the basic health precautions now can help get us through to the promised land of a vaccine-protected population, and open borders.