Pace of rollout risks more than just a date

Behind all the smoke and mirrors surrounding the pace of the Government’s vaccination programme, one number stands out. With the rollout to the general population due to start next week, more than 1 million vulnerable Kiwis – people who are most at risk of serious illness or death from Covid– are still waiting to receive their first shot.

These are the people in ‘‘group 3’’; which includes anyone over 65 and those suffering from conditions including heart disease, cancer, autoimmune disease, diabetes and asthma. If the highly contagious delta variant of Covid takes off here as it has in Australia – and given previous border breaches it seems like a matter of when, not if, it gets into the community – hospital and acute care services could easily be overwhelmed.

Fear of what might happen is behind the growing number of calls to delay the rollout to the general population. But the Government has so far refused to heed them.

It’s explanations have been weak – so it’s hard not to conclude the most likely reason is politics. Pushing the date back would be an admission the programme is not going to plan. With so much riding on the vaccine rollout, the Government has been hugely sensitive to any suggestion of a fail.

But it risks fuelling the high level of frustration and anxiety among those in group 3 who are still waiting.

Fewer than 20 per cent of group 3 Kiwis have had their first shot, and only around 11 per cent have had both, according to the most up to date figures available from the Ministry of Health. That equates to more than 1 million people in group 3 who are still completely unprotected.

The ministry claims most people in group 3 have a booking, although the minister for Covid, Chris Hipkins, created some confusion around that claim last week when he suggested there were about 700,000 people in group 3 booked into the system. Given that there are 1.7 million people in group 3, that seems to fall short of ‘‘most’’. However, it wasn’t clear whether he was including those in group 3 who have already received their first dose, and who will already have bookings for their second shot.

Anecdotally, we all seem to know someone in group 3 who has heard nothing from their DHB about an appointment; and we all seem to know of someone in group 4 who has been able to jump the queue before the general rollout gets under way.

The science would probably say it doesn’t really matter in what order we all get vaccinated, that the important thing is getting as much of the population vaccinated as quickly as possible.

The emotional response, however, says that under the ever-present threat of a new outbreak, every vaccine that goes to a healthy person now is a vaccine denied to someone in greater need.

Which is why pressing ahead with the general rollout risks courting a far greater backlash then merely pushing out the date.

If the system is overwhelmed by group 4 people rushing to make a booking, for instance, even more vulnerable Kiwis could be left behind.

The politics of getting that wrong would potentially be far more damaging to the Government than merely pushing out the date.

Pressing ahead with the general rollout risks courting a far greater backlash then merely pushing out the date out.