1. Question No. 1—Prime MinisterHon JUDITH COLLINS (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime MinisterORAL QUESTIONSQUESTIONS TO MINISTERSQuestion No. 1—Prime Minister1. Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by her statement from yesterday Of course our goal is to vaccinate as many people as possible as quickly as possible"; if so has her goal changed from April when she said "I support the fact that we have been later in the pecking order"?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): I stand by my full statements: yes and no my goal hasn't changed. Our goal has always been for everyone in New Zealand to be vaccinated as soon as possible. That is why the Government established its vaccine strategy task force in May of 2020 and began conversations with Pfizer in July of 2020. This was long before it was even known if a vaccine could work. The outcome has been agreements with four different manufacturers who have all demonstrated effective vaccines and the decision by our Government to focus on the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. But we've also been aware of the global context we've been operating in and that will have impacted on distribution and supply across the course of this pandemic. Some countries have experienced tragically much higher death rates than ours.Hon Judith Collins: Can she confirm that more than 2 million New Zealanders over the age of 12 are yet to receive a single dose of the COVID vaccine?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: What I can confirm is that we have 2290143 people who have had at least one dose. That represents 54 percent of people aged 12 and over acknowledging that that eligibility changed only recently. But what I think it also demonstrates—just the pace of this roll-out at this point—is also not only those who have been vaccinated but those who have now booked in to be vaccinated in the near future. We see for instance 68 percent of people aged 12-plus are booked or have been vaccinated with at least one dose—68 percent. That's fantastic given only today you will have seen that we've just opened up eligibility for everyone and again as I say it demonstrates the pace that we are now at with our roll-out.Hon Judith Collins: So can she confirm that that leaves more than 2 million New Zealanders over the age of 12 who are yet to receive a single dose of the COVID vaccine?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I've shared the numbers that I have. I'm not willing to on the spot verify the member's numbers.Hon Judith Collins: Can she rule out having to delay vaccine appointments that have already been booked due to an anticipated shortage of vaccines?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Actually that is incorrect. It is not that we have had a shortage of vaccines; it's that we've put in additional surge capacity to allow a considerable increase in vaccinations. Through this period that we're in now and leading into over September we'd always planned around the supply that we had which would have enabled us to on average deliver about 50000 doses a day or 350000 across the course of the week. When the outbreak started we saw of course—as you may expect—some demand lift and we decided to then increase the capacity to provide surge vaccinations. That has led to over 500000 doses being delivered a week. What we're now seeking to do is meet that additional demand by seeking additional supply. Our goal if we are unable to do that is as much as possible maintain the bookings that we have but also in those areas where there is big surges in demand and it is particularly high needs for us to vaccinate keep that additional surge capacity in Auckland and the upper North Island.Hon Judith Collins: Can the Prime Minister confirm if the additional vaccines that she's just referred to—if she has a date for when they will arrive?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I can say that we're working in earnest across a number of different strategies. When we have more detail that I'm willing to share we will absolutely share it. But as I say we're already thinking in advance if in the eventuality we're unable to meet that extra demand what we would do around the existing supply that we have. Keep in mind we've of course always had deliveries coming in of Pfizer on a weekly basis but they've been in the order of 300000 when we are currently seeing demand of over 500000—demand that we have helped create by putting in extra surge capacity.Hon Judith Collins: Was the Director-General of Health correct when he said "we're looking at every opportunity there is to see if we can get some additional vaccine in"; if so is this additional vaccine needed to meet existing vaccine bookings?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: You will have seen I just set out in quite some detail around what we had around existing planned supply versus the demand that we're seeing and I also just set out in my answer to the question to the member that if we are unable to secure that extra supply our goal is to retain bookings. I believe I've tried to comprehensively answer the member's question and so therefore yes I do agree with Dr Bloomfield's statement.Hon Judith Collins: So why did it take an outbreak of COVID for the Government to attempt to speed up the vaccine roll-out?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again we have been working as quickly as we could against the supply that we had. We've always said that it is in the latter part of the year particularly October where we're finally seeing those large drops of vaccine to enable us to then scale up in a significant way. Even then our projections were roughly 50000 doses a day. But when we had the outbreak occur we provided additional opportunities to vaccinate New Zealanders and then we've sought to increase supply. It's wrong to imply though that we don't have enough vaccines for every New Zealander; we do. They just happen to be arriving in several weeks' time and we want to take the opportunity now when demand is now to try and vaccinate as many as we can.Hon Judith Collins: So can we take it from the Prime Minister's comments today that we don't have enough supply actually in New Zealand at this stage to meet all of the existing vaccine bookings?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: No the member is incorrect. We currently have 726000 doses in the country and we receive them weekly. So of course at any given point we're always receiving doses in order to meet the demand that we have at any given time. We have a surge because we've enabled a surge. People have been in high demand and we're providing for it. The one other thing that I'd just point out to the member: there's been a significant implication in some of her interviews this morning that we wouldn't be experiencing Delta cases had we had a roll-out that had started before for instance clinical trials had finished which is what has happened in some countries. In some countries they started vaccinating before clinical trials were even completed. We weren't one of those countries. Some of those countries are still experiencing outbreaks as significant as what they had before their vaccine roll-outs and that's because not enough people have been vaccinated. Our goal has to be to do better than even those who started some months ago and we have that ability as a country. We all just need to continue to encourage people to take up the chance to be vaccinated.Hon Judith Collins: Why wasn't consideration given to having a surge in vaccinations before the country ended up in a level 4 lockdown?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Of course a surge is created by those who are willing to be vaccinated at any given time firstly. Secondly as I've said in a matter of three to four weeks that supply issue starts to diminish because we have a considerable increase in the supply that is before us—a considerable increase. So our roll-out has always been one that has scaled up but we took the opportunity as soon as this outbreak arrived as soon as we had people in lockdown where the only things they could do was be tested or vaccinated to offer those vaccines and we've done that. It's not too dissimilar to what we've seen in other countries. However we have beaten other countries' per capita increase in vaccines being offered by almost every single measure. There's only one country who's had more at the peak of their vaccination roll-outs. So the demand really has been globally unprecedented here in New Zealand."