NZ to receive million Pfizer doses in July
Supply certainty aids main rollout: Hipkins
Pfizer has confirmed about 1 million doses of its vaccine will be delivered to New Zealand during July. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins confirmed the deliveries at the post-cabinet press conference yesterday afternoon.
This would nearly double the total number of doses delivered so far to 1.9 million — enough to vaccinate a quarter of all New Zealanders.
“The doses will arrive in weekly drops, ramping up in quantity from mid-july as we start to move to the wider population rollout,” Hipkins said.
“The drops will enable us to continue vaccinating Groups 1, 2 and 3, while giving us the certainty needed to start the general population rollout [from the end of July] as planned.”
DHBS can start to ramp up the rollout through Group 3 from midjuly, he said, which included those over the age of 65, and people with disabilities and some underlying health conditions.
Hipkins said the Government was working with DHBS to make sure they could scale up in early July in line with vaccine shipments.
New Zealand shouldn’t run out of vaccines at the end of July, even though the largest shipments were due at the end of July, he said.
Current dose rates of 20,000 a day would increase to up to 50,000 a day by August, Ardern said.
New Zealand had so far vaccinated more people than Australia per capita, she said.
Pfizer had also advised its remaining schedule was on track for 2021. Now there was a firm idea of the delivery schedule, Cabinet would make further decisions on the rollout on Monday, Ardern said, including details of the online booking system.
Ardern said having a vaccinated population gave another layer of security against outbreaks, along with border measures.
Other countries experiencing third waves were losing lives and needed to be prioritised, she said, and New Zealand was in “the right place” in the global rollout.
Last Wednesday, at the last rollout update, director general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said there were about 260,000 doses in stock, and weekly deliveries for the rest of June were expected to be around 50,000.
Hipkins said work was “well advanced” to set up more vaccination sites. — NZ Herald