Vaccine targets fair enough

It’s not hard to see why National has called for the Government to identify a specific target for how many people will be immunised against Covid-19 and by when.

Focus matters. We need markers against which we can judge our progress, or lack of it.

But there are perils in fixating on a single target. We’re combatting a virus which positions us in something like a Space Invaders game (kids, ask your parents). Or even Doom Eternal (parents, ask your kids).

We’re assailed on many fronts. The targeting needs to be reactive to changes across them all, and in the knowledge that losing in one area can be catastrophic in another.

That’s roughly the point Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern makes. It’s not enough for the vaccination percentage rate to be high enough on average if there’s even one part of the country where it’s low enough to invite community outbreaks.

So all right, we can’t be tunnel-visioned. But National does have a point that neither should we allow our goals to be too hazy, to the point of denying the public a coherent overview of this battle’s dynamics.

The Ministry of Health should be required to be open and upfront about progress reports. And, in case this doesn’t go without saying, it should also be capable of collecting and making swift sense of the data. It’s not always easy to determine whether a lack of public data is due to official reluctance or incapacity to produce it.

We don’t need to look further back than the news of recent days to see the need for continuing scrutiny – external as well as internal – of performance standards. Note, with displeasure, the recent breach of 716 people’s privacy due to the sore inadequacy of a vaccine booking system.

Vaccination levels that deliver us herd immunity (they really should strive for a less animalistic description of this state) obviously stand as a necessary achievement. From what Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield says, there’s some international consensus that having 75 per cent of us with some immunity to Covid-19 would suffice. For comparison, 88 per cent of children were ‘‘fully immunised’’ for other diseases at age 5 last year.

But here’s where we must be careful not to stamp Mission Accomplished upon the achievement of that 75 per cent figure.

People who are hesitant to be vaccinated may initially be tempted to hang back to see whether enough others will get the nation over the line, and afterwards use that achievement as justification for not ultimately getting the shots themselves.

If too many in the same community take that approach, then bingo, that community has a problem, and the country may too.

Full vaccination throughout New Zealand must realistically be seen as an unattainable idea, particularly given the traction that conspiracy theories have spuriously gained, but the most meaningful goal is surely to get as close to that figure as we possibly can.

We need to persuade everyone we can about the reasons for getting the shots for our individual, as well as collective, benefit.

There’s also every chance that markers of progress will need to be recalibrated, given the potential for setbacks through community outbreaks, or hitches in vaccine delivery, or perhaps changes in prioritisation of who among us needs to be vaccinated ahead of who else.

It’s not beyond New Zealanders to understand how circumstances can change, and progress must be reassessed. We’re entitled to enough information to form a clear a view.

The Ministry of Health should be required to be open and upfront about progress reports.