Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has confirmed the Covid-19 vaccination programme will resume nationwide on Thursday after questions were raised around it being paused in the wake of the Auckland Delta community case.
At this afternoon's Covid-19 update in Wellington, Ardern said a record 55,688 vaccines were distributed yesterday before the Government paused vaccinations nationwide - a move Ardern said was to reduce the potential of spreading the virus.
"[The pause] was to allow DHBs to implement their contingency plans for Level 4," Ardern said.
While critics such as ACT Party leader David Seymour slammed the pause, the Prime Minister said this afternoon the rollout will be back up and running quickly.
"All DHBs had plans in place to continue the vaccination rollout during Level 4 and those have now been activated."
Ardern said some vaccination sites would return Wednesday afternoon before a nationwide rollout would continue on Thursday from 8am, albeit with the warning things would look "a bit different".
People aren’t taking their chances, with waits of up to three hours for a test at Coromandel.
"Vaccination sites will be operating under Level 4 conditions and that means in some cases, they won't necessarily have as many people coming through as they may have prior to enable social distancing and safety."
People whose bookings are affected by the changes will be sent notifications, the Prime Minister added.
"Otherwise the message is simple: if you're booked for a vaccine tomorrow, or the next day, or the next day, and you haven't heard anything, please go."
With that in mind, Ardern said the vaccination rollout was mostly continuing as planned with those aged 40 and over now able to visit bookmyvaccine.co.nz to make a booking.
That site appeared to crash shortly afterwards but was working again early on Wednesday afternoon.
"An enormous difference"
Ardern, asked about the importance of being vaccinated in the context of the current situation, said: "To put it bluntly, if you have had the vaccine you are less likely to catch Covid-19 and much less likely to get sick or die if you do," she said.
She pointed to the United States health body the CDC's findings that the risk of infection is reduced three-fold in vaccinated people.
Ardern warned there are still people who get infected after the vaccination.
"We call those breakthrough infections and people with breakthrough infections can transmit the virus.
"That's why we do still ask everyone to be cautious no matter what your vaccine status is."
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