Forty-eight per cent of Bay of Plenty District Health Board port workers are not vaccinated. Photo / Getty Images
Forty-eight per cent of Bay of Plenty District Health Board port workers are not vaccinated. Photo / Getty Images
Nearly half of Bay of Plenty's port workers are not vaccinated against Covid-19 - with a major push to get them their jabs starting Monday.
The ministry says 249, or about 48 per cent, have not had vaccinations - figures that are at odds with earlier ones from the NationalParty.
The figures were revealed as wastewater testing results for Tauranga and Mount Maunganui showed no traces of Covid-19 on Monday and Tuesday.
Two 24-hour composite samples collected at the beginning of the week did not detect the virus, the Ministry of Health said yesterday in a media statement. Additional samples were collected yesterday, with the results expected today.
National MP Chris Bishop has the data in answer to parliamentary questions. Photo / NZME
The National Party's Covid-19 Response spokesman, Chris Bishop, released data on Monday that said 60 per cent of Bay of Plenty port workers were unvaccinated against Covid.
The MP released a list of vaccination rates for district health boards across the country. It was according to answers to parliamentary questions provided to Bishop.
A total of 530 port workers are enrolled with the Bay of Plenty DHB, the information states, however 319 were unvaccinated. Some 200 people had had two doses of the vaccine and 11 had had one dose.
"We have a glaring hole in our border," Bishop said.
But a Ministry of Health spokesman believed the data was "nearly a month old" and provided the Bay of Plenty Times with information updated on August 11.
"Data from the Border Workforce Testing Register (BWTR) shows 235 active port border workers have been fully vaccinated, 33 have had one dose and 249 are still to be vaccinated."
In response to low numbers of vaccinated workers, the Ministry of Health spokesman said the local public health unit would work with Port of Tauranga and its contracted companies to improve access and combat misinformation to ultimately get workers vaccinated.
Vaccinations would be available on site for port workers from Monday, he said. Toi Te Ora, the public health service, would provide the service for the next two weeks.
Meanwhile, international port logistics company ISO said in a statement yesterday 72 per cent of staff were either vaccinated or booked in for their first dose.
The statement said the company pre-empted the potential for mandatory vaccinations and had been holding information sessions for staff, allowing employees to be vaccinated during work hours, and regularly followed up with staff on the fence about vaccination.
It had employed a full-time dedicated resource for managing and updating covid testing and vaccination records.
The Government widened the vaccination order last month, giving a long lead-in time before all higher-risk border workers had to be vaccinated.
For public-sector border workers the deadline is August 26, and the Ministry of Health said only a "handful" of them still need to be vaccinated. For the privately employed, the deadline is the end of September.
The information has been revealed after nine of the 98 workers who dealt with the Rio de la Plata were revealed to be fully vaccinated while two had received their first dose.
Ministry of Health Covid-19 vaccination operations group manager Astrid Koornneef said DHBs with major ports were actively working to further improve vaccination rates.
"While vaccination rates for port workers have shown a steady improvement since the recent amendment expanding vaccinations to a wider group of border workers, with 68 per cent nationally now having received at least one vaccination more intensive work is under way to lift these rates further."
The Bay of Plenty Times has approached the company involved with the Rio de la Plata but has not received a response.
The Ministry of Health confirmed on Thursday that 73 people boarded the Rio de la Plata between Wednesday and Saturday last week. This was one more than previously reported.
This person had now been tested and returned a negative result.
All workers at the Port of Tauranga who were associated in some way with the container ship had now returned at least one negative test.
Additional testing had been required for a number of port workers, of which all are negative apart from three pending.
One of the three pending results was from a port worker who worked for longer than previously thought, the ministry said. That person was being tested again.
The Rio de la Plata has departed New Zealand en route to Malayisa. Photo / George Novak
Tauranga National MP Simon Bridges said the low vaccination rates across the Port of Tauranga was worrying.
"There really aren't particular good excuses [for it]. We are the big port where so much comes in. We are proud of that and we don't want to see it stop.
"It hasn't been good enough to date and the simple message is, vaccinate, vaccinate, vaccinate - both to the government and the workers."
Bridges said Tauranga didn't want to be a "sitting duck", and that meant everyone needed to remain vigilant and vaccinate.
He said with the Delta variant proving to be more contagious than other strains, people should not waste time getting vaccinated, Bridges said.
"We should be trying to do things much more quickly."
