Authorities will be reviewing the pause on quarantine-free travel to Victoria tomorrow, and New Zealand is beating its vaccination targets, officials say.
Associate Minister of Health Ayesha Verrall and Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield provided an update on the vaccination programme and Covid-19 numbers today.
Verrall said the vaccination plan was on track.
She said 668,115 total vaccine doses had been administered by midnight last night - with more than 104,000 doses administered in the past week and more than 19,000 yesterday.
Verrall said it was the biggest week of vaccinations so far.
"Friday was our biggest day of vaccinations to date, with 20,015 vaccine doses administered. Within that, more than 235,600 people have received their second dose."
Overall New Zealand was 9 percent ahead of its vaccination plan, she said. A further delivery of the Pfizer vaccine yesterday meant the country had received 971,100 doses, enough to fully vaccinate more than 485,500 people, she said.
She said Northland, which had struggled to meet targets early in the rollout, had broken even with its targets.
South Canterbury DHB had continued to offer the vaccine in Timaru despite the flooding, she said.
Bloomfield said it was encouraging to see the rollout go ahead of schedule.
Daily Covid numbers
There are no new cases of Covid-19 to report in the community in New Zealand today.
There are six new cases to report in recent returnees in managed isolation facilities since the Ministry’s last update yesterday.
The seven-day rolling average of new cases detected at the border is one.
One previously reported case has now recovered.
The total number of active cases in New Zealand today is 18.
Our total number of confirmed cases is 2,323.
Since 1 January 2021, there have been 65 historical cases, out of a total of 507 cases.
Victoria outbreak
Victoria outbreak
Authorities will be reviewing the pause on quarantine-free travel to Victoria tomorrow.
In Victoria, officials are strongly considering extending the seven-day lockdown due to end at 11.59 on Thursday amid growing fears about rapid transmission in settings never seen before.
Bloomfield warned that the spread of the 'Delta' variant, which was first detected in India, through Victoria was proving tricky and unpredictable, with greater risk of spread.
"Regarding the current Victorian outbreak, the likely window of infection of the index case there which happened in a managed isolation facility in South Australia has been reported as being merely 18 seconds when the person unknowingly infectious opened their door and the index case opened their own hotel room door within a very short time of each other when there was potentially still live virus in the air."
He said New Zealand health authorities would be observing the situation closely over the next 24 hours, and updated advice will be provided tomorrow to ministers about the current pause on travel from Victoria.
"With our own border incursions, we have reviewed and improved our processes in MIQ but of course no system is perfect, and so we remain highly vigilant and constantly learning and constantly looking at what others are doing overseas particularly as these new variants emerge."
"Everyone in New Zealand still needs to keep their guard up. We cannot take our current situation for granted and there are things we all need to do to keep the virus out."
New Zealand's quarantine-free travel with the Australian state has been suspended since the outbreak of community cases there, but that is due to end on Friday.
New Zealand's Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins previously said that would be kept under review as the situation developed.
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Comments
If you set low targets you can often attain them.
I would like to see a breakdown of performance achieved against target, by each of the individual District Health Boards.
Many regions seem to be stuck at level 2 vaccinations and anticipated target dates for starting on Level 3 are being passed without updates to the proposed time lines.
While I accept that the Govt had no option but to use District Health Boards to get the job done I believe they should be naming and shaming those who are not achieving targets.
This vaccination programme has done one thing for me. It has convinced me of the absolute need to take the administrative management of our health system out of the hands of elected boards, most of which consist of wannabe political hacks or medical professionals, who may be technically proficient, but between them couldn't organise a booze up in a brewery.
The Govts review of the health system could not be more timely.