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2400 JABS

Jo Lines-MacKenzie jo.lines-mackenzie@stuff.co.nz

If Waikato residents want summer BBQs with friends, concerts, and Christmas with family, then just under 2400 people a day need to get their Covid-19 vaccine.

Waikato, like the rest of the country, is working towards the 90 per cent fully vaccinated target to enjoy more summer freedom.

And the woman behind Waikato DHB’s vaccine roll-out is confident that can happen.

‘‘We are so close. I am saying yes, we can reach it,’’ Covid vaccine programme lead Maree Munro said. ‘‘Is it going to be easy? No. It’s actually going to be quite hard to do that, and we have to take every vaccination we can.’’

Unvaccinated people made up the majority of the 91 Covid-19 cases reported in Waikato as of Tuesday.

Eleven per cent of the cases had received their first vaccination, and less than three per cent were fully vaccinated.

Getting Waikato’s population to 90 per cent fully vaccinated would take 127,990 vaccinations, as of Tuesday.

Broken down, 2370 people a day would need to be vaccinated before Christmas to gain more freedom for the Waikato. Munro admits it’s not as easy as it sounds.

‘‘Having 2370 a day doesn’t sound much at all, but we are getting down to doing small numbers. Whereas we were doing 7000 or 8000 vaccinations a day, over the weekend one of the days was just on 1000.’’

Munro said health providers have to reach the 21,372 who haven’t had their first vaccine.

Figures from yesterday show Waikato region vaccination rates of 85 per cent for first doses and 68.2 per cent for the second.

Gone are the days of thousands walking into sites, Munro said. Health providers now identify lagging vaccination areas and go there with support of local community leaders.

‘‘We’re not sending urban Hamilton people right out into, say, north Ruapehu, we’re actually trying to draw from the community, so there are familiar faces going into those communities to talk to them.’’

Waikato has a high Māori population and Munro admits they are still behind in the figures, with just 69.4 per cent having had their first dose and 46.9 per cent fully vaccinated.

‘‘So we are going into marae, community centres and vaccinating in there. The strategy now is about engagement and trying to find those people and then making sure we can provide some vaccination services in those areas.’’

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‘‘We are so close. I am saying yes, we can reach [90 per cent].’’

Maree Munro

Waikato DHB Covid vaccine programme lead

vaccination sites in action around the Waikato this week, Munro said adding the DHB is also looking at incentives to encourage people to be jabbed.

‘‘We are working with some people as to what we can do most Saturdays and Sundays in the communities where we really need to be working in to lift those numbers.

‘‘Hamilton City coverage is actually not too bad, but when we get into the Ruapehu, Ō torohanga, and South Waikato, they are some of the areas we need to be getting the events on, where there is more than just a vaccination process.

‘‘We saw that with Super Saturday. South Waikato vaccinated the most people on that day with 571, so we need to see how we do more of those.’’

Munro is confident the DHB can get the final numbers and, while unable to predict a date for that to happen, she has seen how far Waikato has come since beginning in January.

‘‘When I look back, we had to do around 700,000 vaccinations, and it seemed so unachievable. Whereas now we are sitting at around 550,000, so we only have to do about 127,990 vaccinations to get to 90 per cent.’’

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2021-10-28T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-10-28T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://fairfaxmedia.pressreader.com/article/281496459495705

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