October 12, 2021
Public health risks grow as COVID drags on
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A member of the Māori pandemic response group Te Rōpū Whakakaupapa Urutā believes Māori are on track to achieve 95 percent vaccination, but work needs to start now to build a better health system for what comes after.
Dr Rawiri McKree Jansen says despite a delayed start, anxiety about the Delta strain of COVID-19 has lifted rates, especially now Maori providers and community groups have been given more freedom to do things their way to reach people.
He says COVID has overshadowed other aspects of public health, such as early detection of cancers and diabetes.
It’s also highly likely there will be outbreaks of flu, measles and RSV next winter when there are still COVID clusters happening, setting the stage for a bumpy 12 months.
“We’ve seen the childhood immunisations fall off a cliff in the last 12 months and we are really under-vaccinated in out childhood groups and we can see from 2019 what happens if measles gets away on us. The vaccination rate for kids has fallen off and we are going to be exposed so many of those things are quite predictable and we’ve got a lot of work to respond to those risks and protest our community,” Dr Jansen says.
He says what’s not helpful now is beat ups about things like the costs of modelling or some of the details of vaccinating hard to reach communities such as gangs.