Call for early Covid jabs in outbreak zone

The Government is being urged to consider vaccinating South Aucklanders first when the community rollout starts.

Papatoetoe and its surrounding suburbs are grappling with the current Covid outbreak – and South Auckland was disproportionately hit by the large August cluster.

Under phase one of its vaccination plan, the Government is prioritising all border workers and their families.

Pasifika Medical Association chief executive Debbie Sorensen said that when the rollout went wider, consideration should be given to putting South Auckland near the top of the queue.

The area’s many border connections put it on the Covid front line.

‘‘Our border is not in Remuera or the North Shore, the border is in South Auckland.

‘‘The airport is based in Ma¯ngere and, of course, a high number of people that are working on the border and the quarantine facilities live in South Auckland,’’ Sorensen said.

The area was doing more than its fair share to keep the country safe and had a higher proportion of people more likely to be hit hard by the virus.

Radio NZ understands the Ministry of Health has discussed a targeted vaccination campaign for South Auckland but has not yet made a decision.

A co-leader of Te Ro¯pu¯ Whakakaupapa Uruta¯, the national Ma¯ ori pandemic group, Rawiri Jansen, said he regularly saw families of border or frontline health workers in his job as a doctor in Papakura and Covid created significant anxieties for them.

He hesitated to use the word ‘‘prioritise’’, saying other parts of the country had isolation hotels, ports and vulnerable people too. Their needs must also be weighed up, he said.

‘‘There is no ethical prioritisation that says somebody with co-morbidities living in South Auckland is more important than someone living with co-morbidities in Northland or East Cape ... but we can describe sequencing this, doing it in order, so we keep the whole community better protected,’’ Jansen said

The Government has so far ruled out vaccinating those connected to the Papatoetoe outbreak despite one scenario in its current rollout plan that says a community connected to a controlled outbreak would be vaccinated.

The second batch of the Pfizer vaccine, enough for 33,000 people, arrived on Wednesday and similar amounts are expected to arrive weekly. –