October 18, 2021
Youth focus shift paying vax dividends
The Director General of Health says keeping up Super Saturday’s momentum is vital to get Māori vaccination rates over 90 percent.
Dr Ashley Bloomfield says there was a great response from Māori, with more than 10,000 Māori getting a first dose on Saturday and a similar number becoming fully vaxxed.
He says part of the reason for lower Māori rates so far was the age profile of the population, and Māori providers have already shown their effectiveness in getting kaumātua and pākeke protected from Covid-19.
“We’ve got to keep the effort and get intensive focus on our younger Māori to get those rates up and we saw on Saturday what works, that really strong theme reaching out into those younger age groups was there not just in the events around the motu but the vax-a-thon as well so good to see that strong focus really did pay dividends,” Dr Bloomfield says.