Claire Trevett
Asks if Kiwis with vaccinations will get special treatment as Ardern prepares to reveal her ideas for New Zealand in world after Covid
prepared by the Covid-19 Public Health Advisory Group chaired by David Skegg.
Ardern is keen not to overstate what she will outline on Thursday, saying it will mainly focus on the next six months.
“[The vaccines uptake] is what gives us the options. But once we have them, what does that enable us to do in the new year, and what do we need to do between now and then to prepare?”
Other countries, including Australia, have set out plans to open the borders with testing and vaccination requirements. In Australia, the border restrictions will ease and lockdowns will reduce once 70 per cent of the population is vaccinated, and further easing will come when it hits 80 per cent.
However, Ardern is reluctant to specify a threshold of vaccinations at which she considers it would be safe to start opening up.
Ardern said she was concerned that setting a target would mean people would decide they could leave it to others to get to the threshold.
“Ultimately we need as many people as possible to be vaccinated.”
Cabinet is also yet to decide whether or not to allow teenagers to get vaccinated after Medsafe gave approval for teenagers to be vaccinated with the Pfizer jab.
Ardern said that was expected soon, but there was no real urgency given that young people would be at the end of the queue. However, she said it would help boost the overall vaccination rate.
And getting back some form of normality will rely on high vaccination rates.
It would reduce the need to use hard lockdowns, and Ardern said that was one of the most disruptive elements in Covid-19.
It would also allow a move on the border.
Ardern said it was likely extra health requirements would apply at
I think over summer there was a sense of relief that we’d got through the year, but now we are in 2021 and we are still running. We are now in this marathon.
Jacinda Ardern
Prime Minister
the borders for a long time to come, as happened with extra security measures after the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York.
Those changes would soon seem normal — the challenge was in making them as streamlined as possible.
Dealing with Delta: Is a new megalevel in the works?
Until then, the danger from variants such as Delta will keep the borders closed — and lockdowns a risk.
Other countries with good records at keeping Covid-19 at bay, including Australia, are now struggling with outbreaks of Delta and there are concerns it will eventually hit New Zealand.
There have also been suggestions that the alert levels system could need to be tougher to deal with the variant’s effects.
Ardern said she did not believe a level 4+ would be required to deal with an outbreak of the Delta virus in New Zealand, saying level 4 was already very restrictive.
“It is already your souped-up alert level. It was always at the more stringent end.”
However, she warned that if Delta does arrive, New Zealanders should expect the Government to move at pace in lifting levels.
“You would expect us to take a really quick approach with Delta. Our approach, by and large, is the right one. You move quickly because that gives us more options.”
Asked if it was worth reopening the Australian bubble before the vaccination rollout was further along given that risk, Ardern said the Government would reassess late next month. At the moment it would depend on how contained Delta was in Australia.
“There’s a lot of water to go under the bridge before we see where Australia ends up, but if you don’t open at that point, we both keep rolling along in our vaccines. You would factor that in presumably. But we are just not there to make that decision yet.”
Vaccinations post-2021: Is there a plan for the boosters rollout?
The first of those who got vaccinated will need annual boosters almost as soon as the first rollout comes to its end. Ardern said planning was still under way for the ongoing rollout of booster shots in the years ahead.
“We fully expect Covid to be something we vaccinate for annually, so we are building that into our thinking and our preparation now.”
Unlike the flu vaccine, she expected Covid boosters would remain government-funded “for the foreseeable future”.
“We just have to remove every barrier possible to enable New Zealanders to take up the vaccine.”
She said it would eventually be integrated into the health system in the same way as the flu vaccine.
The difference was that there was more need for people to get a Covid-19 vaccine than a flu jab.
However, she indicated it was not a done deal that New Zealand would stick with Pfizer throughout.
She said she did not yet know how much the booster shots programme was likely to cost on an annual basis, saying it would depend on negotiations with vaccines companies.
The administration costs would also vary, depending on how “fragile” the vaccine being used was.