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 speed of the COVID-19 vaccine roll-out and decisions relating to the roll-out made by the Government to this point? Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): Yes. I would note that as supplies of vaccine have arrived in New Zealand they have been administered incredibly efficiently. We have about a 99.5 percent vaccine utilisation rate one of the highest in the world. Our booking system has operated effectively and the supply chain and logistics around the vaccine campaign have operated very very well; 3.5 million doses overall have been delivered to date; our overall weekly delivery has scaled up significantly in recent weeks as supply has allowed; 54 percent of our eligible population aged 12 years and over have now received at least one dose of the vaccine—a significant milestone—and we're working hard to keep up that momentum. Chris Bishop: Has the Government approached any other Governments in order to seek COVID-19 vaccines from them for New Zealand and if so what countries and what types of vaccine? Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The Prime Minister and I have both indicated publicly that we are exploring a range of different avenues to increase our supply of vaccine through September. Through October we're confident that we have enough vaccines due to be shipped from Pfizer to be able to more than meet the demand that we have but September we are looking to see if we can increase the overall supplies of that. I certainly don't believe it's in the public interest to start naming any countries or any potential partners at this point. However I would indicate that we remain committed to a Pfizer vaccine roll-out. Chris Bishop: Is it Government policy to vaccinate as many people as possible as quickly as possible." as the Prime Minister said yesterday and if so is he satisfied with New Zealand having the second-slowest roll-out in the developed world? Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Of course I would like to vaccinate more people faster. Supply has been the big constraint up until mid-July and there's a potential that supply will be constrained through September given the huge volume and the huge surge in demand that we are currently seeing which I welcome. I would note that of those age cohorts that have been eligible for longer we're seeing very very high uptake—up to 85 percent in the 65-plus category. I think that sets a standard for the rest of the age cohorts across New Zealand to try and catch up and I certainly would encourage them to book in. Would I have liked to have seen more vaccines arrive in the country faster? Yes of course I would have. Do I regret though making the decision to switch to a campaign based around using only the Pfizer vaccine? No I don't. I do believe that in the next period of time that will prove to have been a good decision for New Zealand. It has meant however that we weren't able to vaccinate as many people in the first part of the year as we might have liked. Chris Bishop: Why are only approximately 80 percent of rest home workers vaccinated and is the Government considering making it mandatory for rest home workers to be vaccinated to work in a rest home? Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Obviously I would like to see that number higher. Rest home workers have had access to the vaccine longer than most New Zealanders have. It is not compulsory for them but we certainly have provided a lot of opportunities for them to take up their chance to be vaccinated and I would like to see a higher proportion of them doing so. Chris Bishop: Why is the Government not planning on vaccinating students in schools until next year when there are many weeks left in the school year and 12- to 16-year-olds can now be vaccinated? Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The feedback that we've had overall is that many families are preferring to bring their children with them when they get vaccinated—so take a family-based vaccination approach rather than having the children and the parents vaccinated at separate dates at separate times. So that is certainly what we have been working towards. I wouldn't rule out the potential for school sites to be used in the future but I would note that in terms of administering as many vaccines as fast as possible school sites aren't necessarily the most efficient way to do that because we're talking about a relatively small number of people. Even if you include the teachers and the kids it's still a relatively small number of people so you'd be standing up new vaccination sites all of the time only to vaccinate a relatively small number. The focus up to this point where we're standing up new vaccination sites has been trying to stand up sites that can have as large a throughput as possible so that we can make the best use of the vaccination workforce. Chris Bishop: Why has the New Zealand Government still not ordered any booster shots of vaccines when many other countries have ordered hundreds of millions of doses and the US will start doing booster shots this month? Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I note that only one country so far has actually started to administer booster shots and that's Israel. In terms of whether we have supplies to do booster shots we already have enough orders of vaccine coming in order to start a booster campaign and it would be well into next year before we needed to have additional supplies in order to service a third roll-out of vaccine to New Zealanders. So we already have several million vaccines that will be available to start a booster shot campaign if we decide to do that. But again I would note that we'll follow the science on that rather than the marketing of the pharmaceutical companies."