No jab for 3800 border workers

About 3800 border workers haven’t had a vaccine jab yet, nor have about half the 50,000-odd household contacts of border workers who are meant to be at the top of the priority queue.

And the latest figures suggest there are about 1100 workers at the border who are not getting tested within the required timeframe.

Director general of health Ashley Bloomfield wouldn’t say if he was concerned, saying instead his main concern was about people in general getting vaccinated.

But epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker said it was “hugely concerning” that such a chunk of the border workforce and their households were unvaccinated: “Having them vaccinated at the frontline is critical to maintaining elimination because it sets up a safety barrier at the border.”

For that reason all border workers, not just those in MIQ, and their households should be getting vaccinated ahead of people in other

Having them vaccinated at the frontline . . . sets up a safety barrier.

Professor Michael Baker

priority groups such as healthcare workers or the elderly, he said.

There are an estimated 13,000 border workers over a fortnightly period.

That includes about 4500 in MIQ facilities, 95 per cent of whom have had two doses of the Pfizer vaccine.

Of the remaining 8500 non-MIQ border workers, about 4500 are fully vaccinated, while 200 have had one Pfizer jab.

That leaves about 3800 border workers at airports and sea ports, or transporting to and from there, yet to have one dose.

Not all of these workers will be subject to the vaccine order that comes into force today, which requires all MIQ and Government-employed airport and port workers to be fully vaccinated in order to work on the frontline.

Asked if he was concerned about the number of unvaccinated border workers, Bloomfield told the Weekend Herald: “What I’m concerned about is making sure we’re just getting the vaccination out to all our groups.”

He noted the rollout was 9 per cent ahead of its target delivery. He also defended the low number of an estimated 50,000 household contacts of border workers who were confirmed as vaccinated.

Ministry of Business, Innovation

and Employment figures show about half haven’t had a single dose. Of those who have, 21,000 have had two doses.

The numbers are those who are coded in the system as household contacts, but Bloomfield said others who weren’t coded as such had also been vaccinated.

“A lot of effort went into the first four to six weeks to both identify and reach out and actually take vaccinations out to those communities where these people were, but they just won’t be coded in the system as identifiable in that group of household contacts.”

The lack of comprehensive coding also means the ministry doesn’t know how many are actually in that group, nor when all the group will be fully vaccinated.

“But what we do know is that many of them live in that South Auckland area, and that’s the area that is absolutely a big focus for vaccination.”

Bloomfield also confirmed a 4 per cent non-compliance rate for MIQ workers getting tested regularly. This translates to about 180 MIQ workers. The rate for non-MIQ border workers was 14 per cent — or about 930 workers.

The Health Ministry said about a third of them were less than four days overdue when they were tested, and because it took a few days to update the border worker testing register, some might well have been tested within the required timeframe.

Bloomfield said non-compliant workers weren’t necessarily missing their tests.

“It’s largely because of timing around getting the results back — that will be some of it. There will always be people, maybe those who have gone on leave, or they’re on days off — [so] they’re a day late.”

There were extra safeguards now, he added, including employers being able to check the system to see whether workers’ tests were overdue.

Bloomfield stood by his comments during the week that we were only at “the end of the beginning”.

“If you look internationally, we can see there are a couple of developments. One is those countries and jurisdictions that have previously done well in keeping the virus out [but are no longer do so] — the Singapores, Fijis, Taiwans and arguably Melbourne over the last couple of weeks.

“It’s an unpredictable virus, and you just cannot let your guard down. So that rhythm will continue.”