August 11, 2021
Lead by example gets port workers jabbed
Ngāti Kahungunu leader Ngahiwi Tomoana says the Port of Napier should be well prepared for ships carrying Covid-19.
The container ship Rio De La Plata, which includes crew members with asymptomatic Covid, was due to go to Napier after leaving Tauranga but it has now left New Zealand, headed for Malaysia.
The Health Ministry says all Port of Tauranga workers who were identified as having contact with the Rio De Le Plata crew have returned initial negative results.
Mr Tomoana says as far as he’s aware almost all port workers a Napier are vaccinated, after some initial hesitancy from Māori and Pacific workers.
"So the CEO of the port got me down there to give them a talk but rather than give them a talk we just rolled our sleeves up and got jabbed in front of them and they all followed suit. After that there was less worry and less anxiety and to my knowledge now it's 99 percent plus," he says.
The majority of border staff at Tauranga were cleared for work today, and the public health service will have staff on-site to provide vaccinations to port staff from Monday for the next two weeks.
Meanwhile, the Health Ministry says more than 127,000 Māori have received their first Covid-19 vaccine and almost 79,000 are fully vaccinated.
In total more than 2.29 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered to date, including 1.44 million first doses and 848,000 second doses.
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