Just the facts - A closer look at the Covid-19 vaccine being rolled out across Aotearoa. How it works, why we need it and who developed it. Video / NZ Herald
Opinion by Mike Hosking
Mike Hosking has hosted his number one Breakfast show on Newstalk ZB since 2008.
Listen live each weekday from 6am on Newstalk ZB.
The shambles over the past week in both Wellington and Australia shows you exactly what ineptitude around a vaccine rollout brings.
None of the drama of the past two weeks had to happen if only we had been awake when it came to sorting out a few jabs.
Thefact the Prime Minister and indeed Chris Hipkins and Ashley Bloomfield can hold a straight face while pretending this is anything but a fiasco, shows you how good they potentially could be in the world of pantomime.
Numbers don't lie. Everyone from the World Health Organisation to the OECD is happily pointing out just where we are on the global list of rollouts; when I last looked it was 122nd.
This is a whack-a-mole policy with little, if any, forethought.
One day it might be possible to see just what sort of deal was struck with Pfizer, and my bet is it's as loose as a goose, hence we appear to have endless difficulties getting jabs.
My bet is there was a mixture of ineptitude on behalf of the Ministry of Health whose record now on everything from PPE to flu jabs to border testing is nothing short of a disgrace, a mixture of ineptitude and a riding instruction from the 9th floor that we didn't need to hurry, because pace wasn't the Government's friend either in terms of delivery or their political fortunes.
A second North Shore-based Covid-19 vaccination centre opened at Albany this week.
At the time the deal was signed, a decent enough number of people thought being locked down and funded by debt was a good time. That, thank the good lord, is now shifting at some pace.
The fact we have cleared a single vaccine is a scandal; the fact we keep running out of the single vaccine is a further scandal.
The vaccine is, of course, the answer and the hermit kingdom approach might have been more palatable if we had rolled the jab out quickly like Singapore or Israel. But clearly no one was in any sort of hurry, so we remain the sitting ducks we always were going to be, given the approach taken.
I asked Bloomfield last week how much thought he'd given to allowing vaccinated people different rules under level adjustments or under travel bubbles and lockdowns.
He uncharacteristically paused, said hmmmm, then said not a lot.
The world is facing an issue around herd immunity - the WHO thinks we'll need an 80+ per cent vaccination rate - and most countries are struggling, even the likes of the United States and Britain.
So Australian PM Scott Morrison is pushing his Premiers to think about allowing more freedoms as an incentive. Are we? Bloomfield hasn't even thought about it.
Chris Hipkins and Dr Ashley Bloomfield announced today New Zealand's supplies of the Covid vaccine are about to "get very tight". Photo / Mark Mitchell
So we have only one vaccine cleared - the one vaccine with major supply issues - one of the slowest rollouts in the entire world, an ongoing series of level adjustments, lockdowns and burst bubbles, a Government that insists none of this is an issue, and an economy that is trailing the major economies we deal with, especially Australia. What growth we do have is almost entirely propped up by printing money and an exploding housing market which they're trying completely unsuccessfully to rein in.
What part of this is giving you confidence?
What specific aspect of this are you looking at and feeling good about?
Singapore this past week has worked it out. Many more already have. We will need to live with the virus.
Vaccines will be ongoing for years to come, borders are already open, reality is returning, except for those who thought locking themselves away from the world could be anything more than an exceedingly short-term breather.
We locked up, then forgot to think about the next bit.
The vaccine is the key to everything, and yet look at how we are treating it, organising it and using it. It's a joke.
