Govt ministers to get their Covid jabs
Government ministers with a health or Covid-19 focus will receive their first dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in the next two weeks.
Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins and Associate Health Minister Ayesha Verrall will have their first dose today, Health Minister Andrew Little in the first week of April, and Associate Health Ministers Peeni Henare and Aupito William Sio in the second week of April.
It remains unclear when Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will be vaccinated. The Government has also invited MPs from all other parties with health or Covid-19 portfolios to be vaccinated in the next weeks to show cross-party support for the vaccine and for frontline healthcare staff.
Dr Nikki Turner, the head of the independent Immunisation Advisory Centre, said the vaccine rollout in New Zealand did not need to be as fast-paced as in other countries, and there were benefits in a slower programme. Turner got her first vaccination at a new vaccinations clinic in Wellington yesterday.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health yesterday said there were two new cases of Covid-19 in people in managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) facilities, and no new community cases. The ministry said the two new cases arrived on the same flight as 10 cases detected on Monday, which travelled from India via United Arab Emirates.
“These recent positive cases do not necessarily indicate an issue with pre-departure testing, since people may not have been infectious at the time of pre-departure testing,” the ministry said. “They may have been incubating the virus at the time or be exposed to the virus after being tested.”