6. Question No. 6—COVID-19 ResponseCHRIS BISHOP (National) to the Minister for COVID-19 ResponseQuestion No. 6—COVID-19 Response6. CHRIS BISHOP (National) to the Minister for COVID-19 Response: What does the COVID-19 vaccine: Illustration of volumes and timing of vaccination roll-out graph on the Government's website say is the number of doses that were due to be administered to date and is he satisfied with the Government's COVID-19 vaccine roll-out?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): Today I released a region-by-region breakdown of the numbers that DHBs are expected to reach over the next 2½ months and this includes actuals through to the beginning of April—and I'm happy to table those. The graph that the member has referenced was an illustrative model of the expected delivery and uptake of the vaccine so that New Zealanders could see the overall sequencing and scale up for the entire year and it didn't include specific numbers. In response to the second part of the member's question I am broadly satisfied with the roll-out to date. I expect the number of daily doses administered to increase as part of the scale up. And I expect that releasing these numbers today will help district health boards to ensure that they are meeting their forecasts.Chris Bishop: How does one generate a line graph which is designed to be illustrative and published to the general public without using data?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The graph was designed to show the scale up. The actual numbers have been the subject of discussion with district health boards to ensure that when we published those the district health boards were prepared for those and confident that they could deliver them. The numbers that I've released today certainly meet that description.Chris Bishop: Why is it that when COVID-19 vaccinations were identified last year as being critical to the recovery from COVID the Government is urgently seeking a programme coordinator two service design advisers and several sequencing managers for the COVID-19 vaccination programme?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Recruitment through different phases of the vaccination campaign has been ongoing. But if the member wants to talk about public sector capability—and the woeful state of public sector capability in health inherited by the current Government because it was run down over nine years by the last Government—I'm happy to engage in that debate.David Seymour: What details of remuneration for performing vaccinations were offered to pharmacies and how many pharmacies so far have signed up to operate as vaccination centres?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: We're not expecting pharmacies to be operating as vaccination centres until the second half of the year. The funding model for primary care which includes pharmacies and GP practices has been a topic of discussion between the Ministry of Health and primary-care providers to ensure that the funding is fair and appropriate. Those talks have been ongoing.David Seymour: What should New Zealanders think of a Government that couldn't organise a vaccination in a pharmacy?SPEAKER: No no no no.Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I reject the premise of the question.SPEAKER: You're having us on David.Chris Bishop: Why is New Zealand ranked just 121st in the world for the number of COVID-19 vaccinations administered per 100 people and second bottom in the OECD when he said that we'd be at the front of the queue?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: As I've indicated to the member before we made a conscious decision to switch our vaccination campaign earlier in the year from using a portfolio of vaccines to using a predominantly Pfizer campaign. That did mean that the overall balance of vaccinations required in the second half of the year increased. In terms of the overall scale up we have been taking our time to make sure that we are getting this right. We have a far lower wastage rate to other countries that we're being compared to. The other point that I would make is we are continuing to operate our health system in terms of its business-as-usual practices. Some of those other countries that have a much higher rate of vaccination are able to do that because their health system stopped doing anything else.Chris Bishop: Is he saying therefore that the Government has made an explicit and conscious decision to slow the vaccination programme down from what it decided to do earlier?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: When we made the decision to switch to the predominantly Pfizer-led campaign it did mean that our second-quarter vaccination numbers went down and our third- and fourth-quarter numbers went up based on the fact that some of the other vaccines that we were anticipating introducing earlier are no longer going to be introduced into the vaccination campaign.