October 18, 2021
Kai and freedom on offer for Covid compliance
Associate Health Minster Peeni Henare says today’s decision on alert levels should send some clear signals about the incentives people have to get vaccinated.
Cabinet will look at how to continue the momentum of Super Saturday which resulted in 130,000 people getting the jab including more than 20,000 Māori.
Mr Henare says the main incentive has to be the increased freedom that will come once more if the population is vaccinated, and that is the message being pushed through any promises of alert level changes.
There’s also what can be done to support Māori health providers, especially in Tāmaki Makaurau.
“Food vouchers help and kai helps and other kinds of things like that and we should consider that, I know a number of Māori health providers, money works and kai works and they absorb that cost and we should be helping them do that,” he says.
Peeni Henare says talking to Māori health providers around the country, he’s assured Māori are more likely to be vaccine hesitant and anti-vax, and one to one conversations are still the best way to reach them.