Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will be discussing the Covid-19 vaccine strategy at the Malaghan Institute at Victoria University this morning. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will be discussing the Covid-19 vaccine strategy at the Malaghan Institute at Victoria University this morning. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will be talking more about Covid-19 this morning - with a particular focus on a vaccine strategy to help fight the deadly disease.
Ardern will be at the Malaghan Institute at Victoria University to give an update on the vaccines policy launched a few weeks ago.
Ardern greeted her Instagram followers cheerfully this morning, going live while making a cup of tea.
"Mōrena everyone. I'm just here in the little kitchenette at the Beehive, up in the ninth floor, making a quick cup of tea in between doing some morning media.
"I thought I'd just let you know that this morning - I like a very big cup - this morning I am off to the Malaghan Institute up at Victoria University to talk about progress on the vaccine strategy that we launched a few months ago," she said.
"This is the vaccine strategy around Covid-19 and the work we're doing not only to make sure that we have equitable access to a vaccine when it is successfully produced for the rest of the world - but also making sure, of course, that we're supporting New Zealand and the Pacific around both of the development and the manufacture of a future vaccine."
In May, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters, Science and Innovation Minister Megan Woods and then Health Minister David Clark announced that $37 million would be given to the strategy.
It would be monitored by Government agencies, they said, including Pharmac, Medsafe and other independent advisors.
Up to $10m would be allocated to research in New Zealand and $5m would be put aside for future production, details showed.
After giving her Instagram update today, Ardern smiled and said she was not sure whether to show off the rest of the room or not - before deciding that she would.
Turning the camera around, she shows off the rest of the room before she explains that she has a "child visitor" quite often and that the room doubled as a baby room.
She shows off the "little rug for Neve" in the middle of the room; a play mat with different animals - a kiwi in the middle - surrounding the name: "Neve Te Aroha."
