5. Question No. 5—COVID-19 ResponseDr LIZ CRAIG (Labour) to the Minister for COVID-19 ResponseQuestion No. 5—COVID-19 ResponseDr LIZ CRAIG (Labour): My question is to the Minister for COVID-19 Response and asks—[Interruption]SPEAKER: Order! I'm going to give a little bit of development feedback to the member and indicate that if she does that again her colleagues will lose supplementaries.5. Dr LIZ CRAIG (Labour) to the Minister for COVID-19 Response: What will be the focus for the Government's response to COVID-19 in 2022?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): The year 2022 represents the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic and we begin this year with a plan to keep us as safe as possible and to keep the country moving forward. Our guiding principle for the last two years has been to protect the lives and livelihoods of New Zealanders and that's what we've done. Our confirmed cases our hospitalisations and our deaths have been the lowest in the OECD for the past two years. Our goal is to continue this trend. Vaccination will continue to be one of our greatest defences against the virus and the roll-out of the booster and paediatric campaigns will be essential in obtaining the overall high rates of vaccination across all population groups but particularly our elderly our immunocompromised and others who are at risk. As we build our collective immunisation we will be commencing our reconnection with the rest of the world.Dr Liz Craig: How will boosters be used in the roll-out of New Zealand's immunisation programme?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Boosters are essential. Cabinet recently considered the advice of the Director-General of Health and the COVID-19 Vaccine Technical Advisory Group and on the basis of that advice reduced the interval between a person's primary vaccination course—their first and their second dose—and their booster dose from four months to three months. As of today over 1.6 million Kiwis have had their booster dose. That's over half of the New Zealanders who are eligible as of today. Boosters are our strongest weapon at this point. Every booster dose that is delivered strengthens our collective immunity and takes pressure off our health system. So to every New Zealander: if you are eligible please do go and get boosted today. It is the most significant thing that you can do to protect your family your friends and those hard-working doctors nurses paramedics and health workers that we all rely on.Dr Liz Craig: What progress has been made to date on the vaccination of New Zealand children under 12 years of age?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Roughly 476000 young New Zealanders between the ages of five and 11 are eligible to get their first dose. Over 200000 of those tamariki have so far received their first dose. As we've seen to date the virus can be unpredictable. While COVID-19 does sometimes have milder effects in children with symptoms more similar to a cold some children do become severely ill and require hospitalisation. In the most recent outbreak 24 percent of our cases have been aged under 11 so the Government is strongly encouraging parents to have their children vaccinated against COVID-19.Dr Liz Craig: What impact will the Government's response to COVID-19 have on our borders?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The New Zealand border will reopen for vaccinated New Zealanders and other currently eligible travellers from Australia at 11.59 p.m. on 27 February. It will open for the same groups from the rest of the world two weeks later on 13 March. The Government's reconnecting plan will see all New Zealanders and key visa holders able to start to enter the country over the coming three months. That will help to assist with our economic recovery and of course help to address some immediate workforce shortages. Having managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) for every traveller coming into the country was a temporary setting when we had no other forms of protection against the virus. New Zealanders need to reconnect with the world and with one another families and friends need to reunite our businesses need skills to grow and exporters need to travel to make new connections. So we've developed a very careful plan that replaces MIQ for the vast majority of travellers whilst also ensuring that we maintain ongoing measures to reduce the spread of COVID-19 in our community from recent arrivals.