5. Question No. 5—COVID-19 ResponseDr ANAE NERU LEAVASA (Labour—Takanini) to the Minister for COVID-19 ResponseQuestion No. 5—COVID-19 Response5. Dr ANAE NERU LEAVASA (Labour—Takanini) to the Minister for COVID-19 Response: What recent announcements has he made on the roll-out of the vaccination programme?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): Yesterday the Prime Minister and I announced that Pfizer has scheduled delivery of an estimated 1 million additional doses of the vaccine to New Zealand during July. These consignments will double the number of Pfizer doses we've received this year to more than 1.9 million enough to fully vaccinate almost a million Kiwis. While we know that the ongoing pandemic can impact on vaccine delivery schedules Pfizer has given us further assurances that the remaining deliveries for 2021 are on track just as their deliveries right the way through the year so far have been.Dr Anae Neru Leavasa: How will these additional deliveries support our vaccination roll-out?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The deliveries will enable us to continue vaccinating groups 1 2 and 3 while giving us the certainty we need to start the general population roll-out as we had planned. The supplies mean DHBs can continue delivering to their plans and start accelerating their way through group 3 from July onwards. We're currently administering around 20000 doses a day. I think our highest point was about just under 23000 doses and the Pfizer deliveries throughout July will enable us to ramp this up significantly. At the peak of the programme across August and September it is projected that it will be administering on average up to 50000 doses per day. This will add significant momentum to the programme to the momentum that's already been generated.Dr Anae Neru Leavasa: How are these deliveries expected to be distributed?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Pfizer have been delivering us weekly amounts of the vaccine and we expect that to continue. It starts with a larger quantity in the first two weeks of July than we have had to date and then gets up to an even larger quantity in the second two weeks of July which aligns with our work to ramp up the programme. I've also been pleased to announce that the extra ultra-low temperature storage freezers have been delivered and are now in place in Auckland and Christchurch meaning that the vaccines can be delivered directly into Christchurch now without having to go through Auckland.Dr Anae Neru Leavasa: Is he confident that we are prepared for the national roll-out?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Yes. District health boards are currently performing over 10 percent ahead of their delivery plans. We are vaccinating more people each week week on week and more than 7000 vaccinators have completed the necessary training to administer the vaccine. It's exciting and reassuring to see the programme is continuing to ramp up. We do have at our disposal one of the best vaccines on the market and we are making it available for free to everybody in New Zealand who is eligible through the course of 2021.Chris Bishop: Why are 3800 border workers still not vaccinated when the COVID-19 website says that as members of group 1 they will be vaccinated by the end of March 2021?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I don't actually accept that that is a fair conclusion to reach. There are some issues around the way people are coded within their vaccination. So we have seen for example some people in group 1B categorised as group 3. In terms of group 1A as we—[Interruption]SPEAKER: Order! I think this is a matter which most members of the House are trying to take seriously. Having the Minister shouted down by one of the more senior members and the shadow Leader of the House doesn't help the House here.Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: In terms of group 1A which includes the managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) workforce and others working at the border where individual cases have arrived to work—in an MIQ for example—and the border worker testing register has suggested that they've not been vaccinated when that has been investigated it's found that they have been vaccinated but there is a data issue in terms of the comparability between data sets. The area where we still do have lower than acceptable vaccination rates is at our maritime ports and further work is being done on that.