5. Question No. 5—COVID-19 ResponseCHRIS BISHOP (National) to the Minister for COVID-19 ResponseQuestion No. 5—COVID-19 Response5. CHRIS BISHOP (National) to the Minister for COVID-19 Response: Is he satisfied with the management of the COVID-19 vaccine roll-out and will the Government set an official target of how many New Zealanders should get the COVID19 vaccine?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): Broadly speaking yes. Yesterday we recorded nearly 3500 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine being administered. That number continues to increase on a daily basis. The scale-up has continued this week—17 additional vaccine sites have come online. We expect to have around 50 vaccination sites operating across the country by early next week. Our plan at this point of the vaccine roll-out was to ensure that we were scaling up sustainably and we are working carefully to make sure we don't run out of vaccines towards the middle of the year before we start to get the big deliveries of vaccines in the second part of the year. With regard to the second part of the question the Government's goal is to ensure that all New Zealanders who can get a vaccine have access to that vaccine by the end of the year.Chris Bishop: Will the Government set a formal target and a date to achieve that target for the percentage of the adult population to receive a COVID-19 vaccine like 26 countries in the OECD have done and if not why not?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: No not at this point. Our goal is to ensure that everybody who can have a vaccine—and at this point that's the adult population—has access to a vaccine and gets a vaccine. We're working hard to ensure that they have good information so that when they are offered a vaccine they take it. Our tier 1 vaccine experience indicates that the take-up rate is very high—well over 95 percent at this point. If we continue to get that kind of take-up as we move through the rest of the sequencing framework we'll be very very happy.Chris Bishop: Well in light of that answer why did the Government set targets for the measles vaccine and the flu vaccine and why won't it set a target for the COVID-19 vaccine?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: One of the things that's better understood is around the efficacy of the measles vaccine; we know a bit more about what we're dealing with there. We know more around what's required to get herd immunity with the measles vaccination campaign. We don't yet know all of that information around COVID-19.Chris Bishop: Why is the Government not publishing daily updates of the number of people vaccinated against COVID-19 like other countries do and will they begin to do so?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Yes the plan is certainly—in answer to the last part of the question—to start releasing daily updates when we get to the point where the vaccine programme is scaled up. In the meantime we continue to release regular updates on the number of vaccines that are being administered.Chris Bishop: Why does the latest available public information show that New Zealand has administered just 0.56 vaccinations per 100 people while Australia has administered 1.21 vaccines per 100 people?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The key point and we've always stressed this is not when we start the vaccination campaign but when we finish it. We are scaling up our vaccination campaign in a way that ensures that it is sustainable that we won't have people standing around because they've run out of vaccines. We're making sure that people will be able to get their second dose of the vaccine three weeks after they get their first dose and we're making sure we are doing this all safely.Chris Bishop: Why has New Zealand administered only 41500 vaccines when we have a supply according to the Government of over 300000 and shouldn't New Zealand be going as hard as possible?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: As I have indicated in my earlier answers if the member had chosen to listen we are making sure that we are administering the vaccines in a way that ensures that we don't run out of vaccines towards the middle of the year. We want to scale up sustainably so that we keep scaling up so that we're reaching a peak vaccine delivery at the time when the large bulk of vaccines will start to arrive in the second half of the year.