The ACT and National parties have today criticised the Government’s "laggard" approach to the rollout of the Pfizer vaccine and questioned the uncertainty around its exact date of arrival in New Zealand.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern this afternoon announced Medsafe had approved the rollout of the vaccine from next month.
Border workers will be first to get the jab, followed by high-risk frontline health workers and frontline public sector and emergency service staff. The third group will be older people and those with underlying health conditions and at-risk health and social service workers.
The vaccine could start arriving in the country from next month. New Zealand has ordered 1.5 million doses, enough for 750,000 people.
ACT leader David Seymour said the “enormity of New Zealand’s soft approach to negotiating Covid-19 vaccines on New Zealanders’ behalf is being laid bare”.
“No amount of faux self-congratulation for finally approving the safety of Pfizer’s vaccine will change that,” he said.
Seymour said the Government “needed an adrenalin shot of urgency about six weeks ago when it became apparent we’d negotiated so differently to other developed countries”.
He also slammed the Government's uncertainty around when the vaccine will arrive on New Zealand's shores.
"Today the Prime Minister could be no clearer about when vaccines would arrive on our shores,” he said.
Helen Petousis-Harris says the Pfizer vaccine, which could roll out from March, is “probably going to work really well”. (Source: Other)
“Australians woke up this morning and were told where their nearest vaccination clinics will be,” he said. “If vaccinations continue at their present rate of 4.22 million doses a day more than 350 million people worldwide will have been treated before New Zealand receives its first dose.
“With the populations of 66 countries having received 104 million doses so far it’s possible half a billion people worldwide will be vaccinated before New Zealand even gets out of the starting blocks.”
National, too, was unimpressed by today’s announcement, with National Covid-19 Response spokesperson Chris Bishop saying "more certainty" is required around the delivery of the vaccine.
“In November 2020, Chris Hipkins boasted that New Zealand would be first in the queue for Covid-19 vaccines but three months later, no vaccines have arrived and the Government can’t say when they will,” Bishop said today in a statement.
“The reality is the Government has been a laggard when it comes to vaccines. Over 50 other countries have already started vaccinating their populations.”
Bishop said the Government has “tough questions to answer” over its contracts with its vaccine suppliers.
“What do the contracts say on delivery dates? Did the Government negotiate hard enough?” he said.
Bishop also admonished the Government’s argument that “other countries need the vaccine more than we do”.
“Taken to its logical conclusion, that would mean no vaccines for New Zealanders for many years to come, which even the Government isn’t proposing,” he said.
“The Government told us in September our relative success in dealing with Covid-19 wouldn’t count against us in securing vaccine supplies yet now seems to think it should.
“This isn’t good enough. Vaccinating our frontline border workers is a moral and economic imperative."
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