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ANALYSIS: With just over a month into the country’s Covid-19 vaccination program, only a tenth of the doses currently have been administered in New Zealand and not all vaccines are being used.
At least four vaccine shipments have landed in New Zealand since the launch began, the most recent on Tuesday, bringing the total number of doses available to about 396,630, enough to vaccinate more than 198,000 people.
But as of 12 a.m. Wednesday, 41,477 doses of vaccine had been administered, just 10 percent of those available, and to vaccinate the two priority groups by June 1 as planned, officials must inject about three times the rate that is being done. in the present.
THINGS
Chief Health Officer Dr. Ashley Bloomfield says that despite more than 1,000 people trained to administer Covid-19 injections, less than half of them are needed right now.
The launch of the vaccine in New Zealand began on February 19, with 25 vaccinators receiving their first prick before releasing the vaccine to border and MIQ workers on February 20.
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That was 34 days ago. That amounted to approximately 1,220 doses administered each day.
Australia, with five times the population of New Zealand, began launching the Covid-19 vaccine on February 22, two days after New Zealand, but had administered 342,100 vaccines on Thursday, ABC reported.
By comparison, New Zealand has administered 8.11 doses per 1000 people, while Australia has administered 13.31.
Of the approximately 41,500 doses administered, 35,700 were first doses and 5,777 were second doses, administered 21 days after the first puncture.
The 41,477 figure was approximately 2,669 more than the previous day, and 14,500 more than the previous Wednesday.
ROBERT KITCHEN / Things
Covi-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins has said the implementation is “generally on schedule”, but Dr. Ashley Bloomfield said it is “slightly delayed”.
This week, Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins described the number of vaccines administered daily as in the “low 2000s” but maintained that the program was “generally on schedule.”
He said the reason the deployment had not increased further so far was to avoid getting into a position where “we started running before we increased.”
“What I don’t want to see … is that we get to do 10,000 a day, and then we find out that we only have enough vaccines left for a period of time to do 3,000 or 4,000 a day,” having to cut back again, he told the media on Wednesday.
Bernat Armangué / AP
Authorities have said it will take the entire year to vaccinate most New Zealanders.
Chief Health Officer Dr. Ashley Bloomfield said officials “did not expect to be [vaccinating] 10,000 a day ”today, and said they had delivered“ about 93 percent of what we planned to be so far ”.
Bloomfield stated that, as of March 24, about 95 percent of the country’s border workforce of 12,000 people had accepted the vaccine, behind the planned delivery for March 13 described above by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.
According to the government’s vaccine implementation schedule, 529,000 people in group 1 (border and MIQ workers and their families) and group 2 (front-line healthcare workers and those in “high-risk” settings) should be vaccinated between February and May.
MINISTRY OF HEALTH / Supplied
The launch of the Covid-19 vaccine in the country began on February 20, with MIQ and broader workers being the first priority.
Things Estimates show that in order to finish vaccinating the remaining 487,500 people in these two groups by June 1, officials must administer about 7,100 injections per day, about three times as many as they are currently given.
The government has said that a total of about 450,000 doses, enough to vaccinate 225,000 kiwis with a two-dose cycle, were due to arrive in the country by the end of March.
On Tuesday, Hipkins said 2,200 people had completed the training required to administer the Pfizer Covid-19 jab.
A day later, it said 1,300 people had taken the training, which was confirmed by a Health Ministry spokesperson who said 1,347 vaccinators had completed the training by midnight on March 23.
However, between the time the deployment began four weeks ago and Wednesday, the total number of active vaccinators was 427.
On Wednesday, there were 131 active vaccinators and the number of vaccines administered was 2,654, which means that each one administered, on average, 20 doses.
The ministry did not respond to why Hipkins’ information on the number of trained vaccinators was inconsistent from one day to the next, and did not respond to questions about why only some of the trained vaccinators were giving active injections.
On Friday, Hipkins’ office said Things he had used the figure for the number of vaccinations performed that day, 2,200, as opposed to the number of vaccinators trained.
The ministry said it was “on track” with the training, which includes how to handle and administer the vaccine, and ensure vaccinators can speak confidently and answer questions about it.
The workforce would continue to grow according to the implementation plan, he said, and healthcare professionals could register their interest in participating.
More than 5,000 people had expressed interest so far, the spokesperson said.
The ministry said it was “pleased to see” that implementation “continues to increase at pace” in line with the sequencing framework.
In the 24 hours to midnight on March 24, more than 3,450 doses were administered.
“We expect this number to continue to rise as we expand the vaccine rollout.”
Chris McKeen / Stuff
University of Auckland vaccinologist Dr Helen Petousis-Harris said that while the NZ rollout appeared to be “a little behind schedule,” it was not massively at this stage.
“In general, the amount of vaccines that each vaccinator administers per day varies according to the site, according to supply and demand, the vaccinators’ working hours and the groups to be vaccinated, among other factors,” the ministry said.
It also confirmed that the current level of reporting at the national level showed a discard, or wastage rate, of approximately 3%.
The spokesperson said he was seeing “a much smaller vaccine discard than was initially predicted” as DHBs have been able to extract all six full doses per vial.
Vaccine scientist Dr. Helen Petousis-Harris said Things that although things were “a bit late, it is not huge at this stage.”
He said there would be a big increase in daily rates in the coming months as implementation ramps up and “issues” are fixed.
Petousis-Harris said it was important to remember that the implementation of the vaccine in New Zealand was not being implemented in an emergency.
She said, “We have the relative luxury of getting it right.”
“When we increase this, it will go fast, we can be sure of that.”
