By Elishya Perera
AUCKLAND, New Zealand (CWBN)_ New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced earlier today (Dec 17) that the government will begin to deliver COVID-19 vaccines to the country’s entire population by mid-2021.
Following two new agreements signed with AstraZeneca and Novavax, Ardern said that the government has secured vaccines sufficient to inoculate not only the country’s entire population, but also people of several Pacific island nations including Samoa, Tonga, Cook Islands and Tuvalu, if they choose to accept the offer.
It is reported that the two agreements would secure access to 7.6 million doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, and another 10.72 million doses of Novavax’s NVX-CoV2373 vaccine. Since both vaccines would be administered in two doses each, these doses would be sufficient to inoculate nearly 10 million people.
Throughout what is noted as “New Zealand’s largest immunisation rollout ever”, Ardern said that the government intends to vaccinate rescue workers and border staff from the second quarter of next year, while the general public would receive access to the vaccine in the second half of 2021.
“Never before has the entire globe sought to vaccinate the entire population at the same time,” she said. “This will be a sustained rollout over months, not weeks, but our pre-purchase agreements mean New Zealand is well positioned to get on with it as soon as it is proven safe to do so.”
The Prime Minister also noted that her government is working closely with neighbouring Australia in order to support vaccination across the wider Pacific.
New Zealand are among a handful of nations which successfully contained the virus, with 25 deaths and 1744 confirmed COVID-19 cases reported so far.
