10. Question No. 10—COVID-19 ResponseCHRIS BISHOP (National) to the Minister for COVID-19 ResponseQuestion No. 10—COVID-19 Response10. CHRIS BISHOP (National) to the Minister for COVID-19 Response: What percentage of people in each of the Government's COVID-19 vaccine subgroups have not received at least one COVID-19 vaccination and is he satisfied with the vaccine roll-out in New Zealand?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): As I indicated to the member last week the number of people in each group is not a static number so I'm unable to provide percentages on who's not received a vaccine from each subgroup but I can provide the number of doses delivered across each of those groups. Across groups 1A and B we've provided 55514 first doses and 50743 second doses. Across group 2 385148 people have received their first dose; 278669 have been given a second dose. For group 3 201945 have received their first dose and just over 86000 have had their second dose. Finally for group 4 51500 have been given their first dose and around 19000 have received their second dose. In answer to the second part of the member's question yes.Chris Bishop: Why have 50000 people in group 4 received their first vaccination dose when there are still thousands of border workers in group 1 who have not yet received one dose of the vaccine?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Everybody in groups 1 and 2 has had a very extensive opportunity to receive the vaccine. Therefore if they have not received a vaccine it will not be because they have not been offered one or had the opportunity to get one; it will be because they have not taken up that opportunity to get the vaccine. In terms of why there are people in group 4 who have received the vaccine some of the district health boards as has been well-canvassed particularly when they're dealing with smaller and more isolated communities have taken the approach of vaccinating the entirety of the community at the same time rather than for example going to a small town to do their group 3 population and then going back to do their group 4 population later on—they've made the decision to do them all at once. There are also people in group 4 who were the walk-in appointments or the off-chance appointments which DHBs have now stopped doing. In some cases they were being done that way because it was an issue of managing their inventory—they didn't want vaccine doses to expire. Now that the shelf life of vaccine doses has been extended at regular freezing temperature from five days to basically a month the rationale for that is no longer there and so DHBs have stopped doing those.Chris Bishop: In light of what he's just said around everyone who works at the border having had a good opportunity to get a vaccine when will the Government if ever move to create a simple rule which is that if you're working at the border you have to have been vaccinated?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The public health rationale—the public health grounds for doing so—would not be strong enough to capture absolutely everybody that works at the border. In fact it would be likely deemed to be an undue infringement on the rights of those people particularly those people working at the border who are working in lower risk roles.Chris Bishop: Why will no checks be carried out on the eligibility of bookings made via the Book My Vaccine system as to whether an individual at the time of the booking belongs to the correct age group that is being vaccinated at the time?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: In order to receive an invitation to book a vaccine through Book My Vaccine the person would have to be eligible. Chris Bishop: Why did an official say last week if people want to front up looking like a 30-year-old when we're [only] dealing with a 65-year-old plus … I mean that's really up to them but we would encourage people just to stick to the plan" and will that 30-year-old be vaccinated when they turn up even if they're 35 years away from actually being eligible?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I don't know who said that—it clearly wasn't me."