Trading jabs over the border deadline
Govt facing heat over the number of MIQ workers who haven’t yet been vaccinated
The Government is facing heat over the number of front-line MIQ workers who have yet to be vaccinated and has set a hard deadline as to when they need to get the jab.
And Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has warned that the bar for these workers not getting the Covid19 vaccination before the end of the month is “very high”.
“There is essentially no reason that we consider acceptable.”
She confirmed yesterday that 86 per cent of MIQ staff — some 3472 workers — have received the vaccine.
So 538 people in this cohort still need to be vaccinated.
These workers now have until April 30 to be vaccinated — if they’re not, they will be redeployed.
“If there is not an option to redeploy them, then it will be up to the employer to work through what happens with that individual, but they cannot work in MIQ.”
But Act leader David Seymour said waiting that long was unacceptable, given the risk of another community outbreak. He said the Government
should use the powers afforded under Covid-19 legislation to tell unvaccinated front-line MIQ staff if they haven’t got the jab by this Sunday, “don’t come in on Monday”.
“Stop pussyfooting about and take the necessary steps to protect New Zealanders and the economy from another outbreak of Covid-19.”
But director general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said this was simply not logistically possible.
“You can’t immediately withdraw 10 or 20 per cent of your workforce and still run the facilities.”
Bloomfield at 1pm yesterday was unable to say exactly how many frontline workers had not yet been vaccinated because the workforce was “changing all the time”.
NZ has 300 employers at managed isolation facilities, airports and ports and that is changing daily.
“So it’s a very difficult thing to pin down exactly how many people haven’t been vaccinated.”
But come 4pm at her post-Cabinet press conference, Ardern was quick to provide this specific number.
She said that 3472 out of the 4010 MIQ workers to date have got the vaccine and more information would be provided today.
This figure does not include airport workers, port workers and other government employees working on the front lines but not directly in MIQ.
But it does take into account the private contractors the Government pays to work at MIQ facilities, such as security.
And it’s with security that the issue of front line workers not being vaccinated was brought into focus.
A Grand Millennium hotel security worker — working for privately contracted First Security — tested positive for Covid-19 last week.
The person had not received the vaccination because they had missed two appointments.
And on Sunday, the Ministry of
Health reported another security worker — who had worked the same shift as the first Covid-positive worker — had also contracted the disease.
That person had not received the vaccine either but had been in selfisolation since the first guard tested positive, Bloomfield said.
Asked why there were still MIQ and front-line workers yet to be vaccinated, Bloomfield said: “Because it’s a large workforce.”
By the end of last week, First Security had had 79 per cent of its workforce vaccinated.
Ardern said this number needs to be 100 per cent by May 1, or “they will need to withdraw those workers . . . in our MIQ facilities”.
In a statement, First Security said it has met all the Government’s Covid19 health and safety obligations around MIQ.
In terms of those workers which have not had the vaccine yet, Bloomfield said they were at the “head of the queue” in terms of having conversations with employers about redeployment. “But they won’t have been required to be redeployed yet.”
That means they could still be working in MIQ unvaccinated.
Seymour said this was unacceptable. “The Government won’t play hardball with unions and force those employees unwilling to get a Covid vaccine to vacate MIQ premises for another 17 days.”