Get your vaccine pass ready and continue to follow public health guidance. Photo / Bevan Conley
OPINION:
Here in New Zealand, our plan is a simple one: to carefully reopen while continuing to protect lives and livelihoods. We're in a new phase of our response. Delta is here now – we need to modify our strategy to minimise its impact.
Our approach of elimination and the
alert levels have served us well and we enter this new phase better placed than many other countries, with high vaccination rates, a strong economy and with fewer hospitalisations and deaths.
I'd like to thank health workers in our region who have worked hard to get as many people vaccinated as possible. The response from everyone in New Zealand has been incredible, with 82 per cent fully vaccinated. Here in Palmerston North we've reached more than 94 per cent for the first dose, which is really something to be proud of. However, with Delta starting to emerge in communities outside Auckland, now is the time to ensure vaccination remains a focus.
We remain committed to working with and supporting those who are hesitant about getting the vaccine, and our job isn't done until everyone who can gets the chance to be vaccinated. However, we need to make decisions now that will protect them and others; the new framework helps protect unvaccinated people by minimising spread.
