August 02, 2021
Mass vax event failed to resonate for Maori
The co-chair of Māori pandemic response group Te Rōpū Whakakaupapa Urutā says the weekend’s mass vaccination event in South Auckland had some useful lessons – but how to reach Māori wasn’t one of them.
More than 15,000 people got their jab at the Manukau Events centre over the three days.
Dr Rawiri Jansen says he was pleased to see the system working, but Māori rates of vaccination are still half what they should be – except in those areas where control has been handed to Māori communities.
He says there was little at the weekend event that would have resonated with Māori.
"It's how you invite people and if you make it hard, you make it complex, you get a text from something you have never seen before and then you have to go to a booking site you have never used before, those things are unlikely to resonate with Māori communities. And then to what extent can you make the vibe of it resonate for Māori communities and I think there are some really obvious things that should be done and I can't see that they were done," Dr Jansen says.
He says there was some effort at the event to include Pacific elements.
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