Frontline workers are a priority for the first wave of jabs
New Zealand’s COVID-19 recovery minister says the government will not rush its vaccination rollout after Australia brought its start date forward.
Christopher Hipkins said the aim is to begin vaccinating frontline workers from April this year in what will be the country’s largest ever immunisation campaign.
Speaking to RNZ’s Morning Report, Hipkins said he is confident a portion of the vaccines will arrive by the end of March, but the rollout for the general public won’t begin until the second half of the year.
"We're expecting the vaccination campaign overall to take most of the year, it's obviously a huge undertaking - we're talking about vaccinating 5 million people," Hipkins said.
"That's never been done in New Zealand before, in the scale and in the timeframe we're talking about."
The government has ordered over 23 million doses from four different suppliers, including the Pfizer/BioNTech and AstraZeneca vaccines.
Hipkins said Australia was being more optimistic about when exactly the vaccines will be ready after Prime Minister Scott Morrison brought the rollout date forward to February.
He said New Zealand’s vaccination programme will prioritise border workers, frontline staff and the elderly.
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He acknowledged that some of the country’s communities will be harder to reach and said the government is working hard on strategies to overcome those hurdles.
Earlier this month, the National iwi chairs forum put forward six recommendations to the government to safeguard at risk communities.
The forum's Pandemic Response Group co-chair, Mike Smith, said the government’s rollout strategy did not go far enough to protect those who are most at risk from COVID-19.
“Kaumātua, kōroua, kuia and other Māori aged over 50 are potentially at risk of Covid-19 and have not been identified as one of the high risk groups and we haven't seen any evidence in the vaccination strategy that they're included as an at risk group,” he said.
“The government should be entering discussions with Māori to bring the vaccination strategy into line with their obligations to safeguard us."
Their recommendations included capping the number of arrivals from overseas, halting plans to create quarantine-free travel bubbles and introducing pre-flight testing – something the government has now implemented.
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Once New Zealand’s vaccine rollout gets underway businesses and employers will face considerations as to if and how they encourage staff to be vaccinated.
Speaking to HRD, Hamish Kynaston, partner at law firm Buddle Findlay, said an employer’s request to mandate that employees are vaccinated will hinge on whether it is lawful and reasonable.
“An employer, particularly those in certain sectors like aged care, might say if you’re going to work here, you’re going to need to be vaccinated,” he said.
“An employee would have a right to decline to do that but the employer in that instance, if their direction was a reasonable and lawful one, might be able to dismiss the employee after considering redeployment or other management options.
“A business needs really clear policies in place to explain the reasons behind the need for a vaccination and give the employee an opportunity to feedback on that policy.”