Jo Moir
Wellington, November 9, 2021
Jacinda faces several challenges as the Traffic Lights System nears (Photo by Mark Mitchell)
The 90% vaccination target for each District Health Board (DHB) could be scrapped in favour of the Traffic Light System to put more pressure on the unvaccinated.
Level 2 life is comfortable for the un-jabbed, and the government knows it.
Just a week ago, the Prime Minister was relying on the unvaccinated wanting to go to a summer festival or a restaurant to get them across the line and into a clinic.
But as vaccination rates continue to dwindle, it is becoming clear that the message is not being received by those living a fairly normal Level 2 life in regional New Zealand.
Auckland under focus
On Monday (November 8, 2021), Jacinda Ardern told Newsroom that she and her Cabinet colleagues are keeping in the “back of our minds whether or not the framework itself could actually help us continue with vaccines.”
That framework is the Traffic Light System, which Auckland is inching closer every day with three District Health Boards having hit 90% first dose vaccination rates at the weekend.
Ardern has given a very strong signal that when the Cabinet reviews the whole country’s alert level settings on November 29, 2021it is increasingly likely that Auckland will shift into the Traffic Light System.
Even if Counties Manukau, the DHB least likely to have hit 90% double dosed is close but not quite there, a “pragmatic decision’’ will be made about shifting vaccinated Aucklanders into new freedoms. Up until now, the message for the rest of New Zealand has been that every DHB in the country needs to hit 90% before they moved into the Traffic Light System.
Incentives for unvaccinated wane
But in those regions, the incentive for the unvaccinated to take the plunge has been next to nothing. That is because going to the pub, a restaurant, the gym and pretty much any other social occasion is allowed at Level 2.
Ardern has been set on getting vaccination rates up to 90% before moving to the Traffic Light System because of the advice that she received from public health experts that the framework was safer when operating in a high vaccination environment.
While the threat of the Traffic Light System, and the two classes it creates, has prompted some of the hesitant to get vaccinated, it hasn’t caught the attention of everyone.
Seven DHBs are still sitting below 75% of the eligible population double-dosed, and there is very little chance that they will reach that target even by early next year.
Based on the Roadmap set out by Ardern, that would hold up the rest of the country despite some regions, like Wellington and Southern, having already cracked 80% double jabbed.
That Roadmap runs the risk of the minority holding the majority hostage.
The Freedom Day
A freedom date of sorts has always been on the table for Cabinet since Ardern announced the Traffic Light System just over a fortnight ago, because of the disparity in vaccination rates from one DHB to the next. But Ardern’s comments to Newsroom on Monday were the first time she acknowledged the roadmap could change.
It is clear that she would prefer to keep the goal at 90% but while Cabinet will be pragmatic about moving Auckland to greater freedoms, it must be just as pragmatic when it comes to the rest of the country.
The greatest challenge for the government in recent months has been the varying alert levels different parts of the country have been in at different times, and their corresponding vaccination rates.
Covid Response Minister Chris Hipkins told Newsroom last month that it would be much easier to make decisions about things like MIQ, returning Kiwis, and opening the borders, if everyone was in the same boat.
The sooner the whole country is on the Traffic Light System the sooner those decisions are made easier. That could change as quickly as November 29, 2021.
Where the challenge remains is with the Maori vaccination rate, which is well behind in some parts of the country. In Tairawhiti, where just 67% of the eligible population is double-vaccinated, Maori make up 47% of the population.
That’s well above the national average of 14%.
Failure on Maori front
There have been huge failures with the rollout for Maori, particularly in communities like Tairawhiti and Northland where many people are isolated and living remotely.
It is only in recent weeks that mobile vaccination clinics have arrived in force in these areas, and the Maori health providers on the ground have been left playing catch-up – often let down by their own DHBs.
The government for the most part accepts the rollout has been flawed for Maori but is also having to weigh up the pressure it is receiving from tired and fed-up Aucklanders and the business community.
It is inevitable that the country will move to more open borders in the coming weeks and the unvaccinated, many of whom are Maori, will feel the effects of that.
Having been failed by the state for generations, history will record it as yet another example where Maori were left behind.
Ardern and her colleagues, particularly her Maori ministers, will be hoping the huge vaccination drive underway in hard-to-reach communities currently will start lifting rates. They will also be hoping for a new world where the unvaccinated are restricted to a life of only supermarkets and healthcare will tip the rest over the line.
Jo Moir is Political Editor at Newsroom. The above article and pictures have been published under a Special Arrangement.
