Without warning, Alert Level 4 was upon us again. The move into lockdown was a reminder of just how unpredictable and changeable Covid-19 can be and how it pays for all of us to be as prepared as we can be for the possibility of disruption.
The National Party supported the Government’s decision. Given everything we know about the Delta variant and where we are with our poor vaccination rollout, moving into Level 4 lockdown was the right thing to do.
But we know that any lockdown decision weighs heavily on our community. It’s frustrating to suddenly have events postponed, important occasions missed and plans with friends relegated to Zoom calls. We know lockdowns can be toughest on individuals living alone who may be isolated, kids whose routines are upended, and parents who might be feeling the pressure of a disrupted income. Lockdowns also create massive upheaval and uncertainty for business owners and employers. A Level 4 lockdown costs New Zealand $1.5 billion each week.
Consequently, we need to have a little straight talk and a reality check, as we are in lockdown again for two reasons; because the border has failed and because nearly 80 per cent of the country has still not been fully vaccinated. The Labour Government claimed last year we were ‘at the front of the queue’. Given what we now know, this was, at best, naive and delusional and, at worst, a complete lie.
Here are the five things all Kiwis need to know about the vaccine roll-out in New Zealand:
1. We were too slow to sign a contract with Pfizer – the 29th slowest out of the 38 countries in the OECD.
2. We were too slow to approve Pfizer for use in New Zealand. The UK approved it in early December 2020. We didn’t approve it until February 3, 2021.
3. We only ordered our Pfizer vaccines on January 29 this year. By this point, the UK and the US had administered tens of millions of doses.
4. We refused to offer incentive payments for early vaccine delivery. It has been reported that an extra $50 million could have prevented the supply shortage earlier this year and at a time when we’ve been borrowing $110 million per day.
5. We still haven’t ordered any Pfizer booster shots for 2022/2023. The US has just announced they will start administering boosters from September this year and other western countries have already got their orders in.
The bottom line is we are in lockdown because the Government did not act with sufficient urgency. We need to vaccinate, vaccinate, vaccinate.
We can no longer tolerate a relaxed vaccine rollout with New Zealand being 120th of the 190 countries in the world. This lockdown has highlighted the need to vaccinate as many people as we can, as quickly as we can. In particular, we need to be vaccinating our frontline workers like port workers, hospital staff and police officers.
The Government must also be making sure we have hospital facilities that are fit-for-purpose with enough intensive care capacity, and that we are prioritising Covid-19 testing including saliva testing. Stories of people who visited locations of interest being turned away for tests after lining up for hours are unacceptable.
So, once again, please follow public health advice. Stay home, other than for essential personal movement. If you do need to go out, please wear a mask and keep a two-metre distance from others. Don’t forget to scan in with the Covid Tracer app.
My team and I remain working from our homes and we are available to help you, so please contact us if you need any assistance. You can email us at botany@parliament.govt.nz or call (09) 532 8390.
Christopher Luxon is MP for Botany
