The path to 90% vaccination
It’s possible we won’t be able to get there, but the country has a target and the promise of doing away with level four lockdowns in the future
Mōrena and welcome to The Bulletin for Monday, September 20, by Justin Giovannetti. Presented in partnership with Z Energy.
In today’s edition: Three test positive in Waikato, cabinet reviews Auckland’s level four, the soaring price of cheese, but first, the country’s vaccination target.
The country’s vaccine programme now has a semi-official target of 90%. The director-general of health says we should aim for it, the health minister says it would likely mean the end of lockdowns, and another minister has staked a case of wine on hitting it this year. The target follows weeks of the prime minister arguing that we should aim for everyone, 100%, while refusing to actually commit to a number.
As Samson Samasoni writes for The Spinoff, there’s a lot of work ahead for the government and even hitting 80% could be a challenge. According to the latest figures, 78% of eligible New Zealanders have either had a dose of the vaccine or booked one. Only 68% have booked or received a second dose. That follows weeks of heavy advertising and a promise that vaccination is the difference between lockdown and reopening to the world.
Ending the pandemic of the unvaccinated. “The evidence could not be clearer. In countries with high vaccination rates, Covid-19 has become an outbreak, a pandemic, or an epidemic of the unvaccinated, Ashley Bloomfield said late last week, according to The Guardian. “We need to be at or above 90% and that is where everybody needs to be thinking about.”
Getting to 90% should only be the start, according to some experts. The NZ Herald has taken up the 90% target as a mission and science reporter Jamie Morton explains that with the highly infectious delta variant of Covid-19 in Auckland, the country needs to aim high. He says that 90% should be our floor. Two models have found that either 97% or 98.1% of the country’s entire population needs the jab to achieve immunity. That means even those aged 12 and under. Among those eligible, the ministry of health’s monthly polling has shown that about 20% are unlikely to seek a vaccine or are still undecided.
The end of lockdowns through vaccination? Getting to 90% would be an achievement for any country, Australian states in the middle of delta outbreaks have set 80% as a goal to reach before relaxing restrictions. Victoria’s premier unveiled a reopening roadmap over the weekend with the goal of getting to 80% by Christmas to allow large family gatherings, according to ABC. In New Zealand, health minister Andrew Little told The Nation on Saturday that once the country surpasses 90% vaccination, level four lockdowns likely won’t be necessary anymore. Cabinet is also considering bringing in mandates to require vaccinations, the minister revealed.
Could the government sweeten the deal? Covid-19 minister Chris Hipkins has said the government won’t provide any financial incentive for people to get the jab. Before delta hit, he’d toyed with the idea of making vaccination events more of a party with live music and food, but that now looks unlikely. While the government hasn’t acted, businesses have come forward with incentives, according to Stuff. One business has given staff the opportunity to win $1000. It follows a script from overseas, where American states and Canadian provinces have offered millions to residents in vaccine lotteries. While it could help get the government past a 90% target, there’s a problem. The argument against incentives for a vaccine is that they don’t seem to work. Experience overseas shows that most people already have incentive enough and those opposed aren’t moved by the promise of cash.
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Three test positive for Covid-19 in Waikato. The health ministry announced late last night that three people in the area around Kaiaua and Whakatīwai have tested positive, Stuff reports. They are the household members of a remand prisoner who left Mount Eden two weeks ago and was sent to the level two area. The prisoner tested positive on Friday on their return to Mount Eden. Two of the people in the household attended school last week. Experts warned RNZ that Auckland’s level four should be extended with Waikato now added.
Auckland’s alert level will be at the centre of attention today. Cabinet agreed last week that the city should move to level three on Wednesday, assuming the situation allows for it. That decisions will be reviewed today. Caroline McElnay, the director of public health, said she was “optimistic” at yesterday’s Beehive press conference, according to RNZ. It’s unclear how the new cases might change that.
The long tail of the outbreak continues to be an issue, with a stubbornly high number of cases reported daily. Since September 4, that daily case number has bounced between a dozen and two dozen new infections, with the exception of a big spike last Monday.
The Covid numbers: 24 new community cases were reported yesterday and 30% (6) of the previous day’s cases were active in the community while infectious. All the cases were in Auckland. 1050 cases have now been detected in the delta outbreak and 688 have recovered. 53,386 people were vaccinated on Saturday.
The Spinoff’s Covid data tracker has the latest figures.
Auckland’s long lockdown is starting to fray nerves. Stuff reports that since August 2020 the country’s biggest city has been placed in a cycle of restrictions that have put a heavy burden on Aucklanders. Some are starting to crack. Police warned that locals were breaking level four rules and took to the city’s beaches over the weekend, while more people were charged after heading south. Along with people intercepted trying to drive through paddocks around checkpoints, two different couples were arrested after travelling illegally to Taupō and Wellington over the weekend.
There's something cheesy about the price of tasty. Shoppers in recent days may have noticed the price of tasty cheese has hit $20 a kilogram and questions are being raised about lockdown pricing, reports Stuff. While some people have reported that prices at grocery stores have jumped in recent weeks, both of the major supermarket operators say no prices have been changed due to lockdown. The government says it’s paying attention to complaints about the prices, but there’s no active monitoring.
Ikea's owner just bought 5500 hectares of Otago farmland to turn into forest. RNZ reports that the company says it wants to cover 60% of the area with pine trees, while the rest will be allowed to revert to native bush. After 30 years, a substantial amount will be harvested. The sale, approved by the Overseas Investment Office in August, follows a story in this newsletter last week chronicling mounting concerns about farm land being turned into forest for the creation of carbon credits. Ikea also reconfirmed that a store is eventually coming to New Zealand.
Intelligence that the Blacks Caps faced a serious threat in Pakistan came from the Five Eyes alliance. The government is backing the cricket team's decision to leave the country in a hurry, the NZ Herald has reported. The team had been training under heavy police guard, during the first tour of the country in 18 years, but the intelligence indicated they faced a real threat. Pakistan's government and cricket community have been critical of the move and said there was no security problem facing the team.
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Right now on The Spinoff: Siouxsie Wiles looks at whether pregnant women, those breastfeeding or trying to get pregnant should get the Covid-19 vaccine. Race relations commissioner Meng Foon writes about the need for kindness in times of crisis. Georgia Munn argues that it’s time for the warming nostalgia of a Cobb & Co comeback. Charlotte Muru-Lanning argues that we should be eating more onion weed. Massey University Press publisher Nicola Legat isn't pleased with how lockdown rules have impacted book selling.
For a feature today, how Australia’s nuclear submarine deal has changed its relationship with the world. Laura Tingle has written for ABC that Australia is now at the frontlines of tensions between the west and China. With the UK and US signing a defence alliance with "that fella down under" as president Joe Biden dubbed Australia's Scott Morrison when he couldn't quite remember his name, a bunch of long-standing assumptions have been broken. Here’s a sample about what’s changed with the new alliance:
“Obviously the first is to align us firmly with the US and make us unambiguously its forward base in the region.
Some see this as a welcome and clear-cut sign of commitment by the US to the Indo-Pacific after years of dithering. Others argue that it is a commitment made without the US actually having to do all that much other than share technology with an always faithful ally.
For it also involves Australia consciously taking on a more assertive military stance of our own in the region, but using imported technology. Over which we have virtually no control. Based on the current stated policy, we will be utterly reliant on the Americans and British to keep our boats afloat.”
There have been big changes made to NZ rugby's Silver Lake deal. The Herald on Sunday (paywalled) reports that the massive deal with the private equity firm has undergone a rewrite after player concern. The company will take a smaller stake but pay more, according to the newspaper. The deal had been a point of contention between NZ rugby and the players' association with both arguing in public about what it would mean for the game. Some more changes could be coming to the governance of rugby to ease player concerns.
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