The Covid vaccine roll-out is costing the government $1.4 billion, Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins has revealed.
The government has revealed the direct cost of the vaccination for the first time.
Nearly a billion dollars has been set aside for the vaccines themselves - and the specialist equipment needed to deliver them.
That includes vaccines the country has not got yet - and may never use - but New Zealand has advanced purchase agreements.
The minister said it had purchased enough to support the Pacific roll-out and any leftovers can be used later.
About $400 million will be used for technology, and for funding the district health boards and Medsafe.
As of midnight last night there had been 474,435 doses of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine delivered across NZ - that's an increase of more than 80,000 on last week, Hipkins said.
In the latest media conference this afternoon, Hipkins said more than 152,000 people had received their second dose of the vaccine, meaning they were getting the maximum protection.
More than 14,000 doses were delivered yesterday.
Hipkins said they expected to reach the half a million mark of overall doses within the next 48 hours.
"That's a pretty significant milestone in this phase of the campaign," he says.
Hipkins said charging anyone for the vaccine has never been considered, because it's important to have uptake as high as possible.
He said it was hard to say how much vaccines would cost in the future, but they were "likely to get cheaper, and we're likely to get better at it".
"We don't know how many shots of the vaccine people might need. I don't think it would cost this much on a yearly basis."
He said no decisions had been made about keeping the vaccine free on an ongoing basis.
Yesterday a report by the Auditor-General raised serious concerns about whether the government could reach its targets and if there was even enough vaccine in the country.
Director-general of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield acknowledged the programme was huge and ambitious, with the aim of nearly 8,000,000 doses of vaccine to be given before the end of the year.
Six new Covid cases in MIQ
There were six new Covid cases in managed isolation to report today and none in the community.
One of the new cases in MIQ flew in from India on May 14 and tested positive to Covid on their day three routine testing, while two others flew in from Qatar on May 14 and 15 and tested positive on days two and three of their MIQ stay. The other three MIQ cases arrived from Bahrain, Turkey and Maldives and tested positive on their day 0 routine testing.
- RNZ/additional reporting NZ Herald
