This presentation will be captioned live by Ai-Media. >> Kia ora koutou katoa good afternoon. I want to begin with an extraordinary number. 94% of New Zealanders aged over 12 are fully inoculated. A year ago achieving that level of society exemption would have been considered incredibly daring. But the great majority of the team of 5 million have done what they have done best through the part pandemic – banded together and turned out to get inoculated. Not just for themselves but to keep their loved ones and their communities safe. And to everyone who has done that, we say thank you. Those high rates of vaccination assistant stop the Delta outbreak and have given us a head start on Omicron before it has the opportunity to become widespread.The science now tells us to reduce the risk of Omicron, we need to get the number of people improved as high as possible. And before the outbreak genuinely takes off. To that dissolve today I can confirm that based on advice from the Director-General and the COVID vaccine technological advisory radical from which we have Dr Ian Town with us today, we will further reduce the time between the second dose and the booster to 3 months. From this Friday from this Friday, 4 February, if you are aged 18 and over and you have had your second vaccination at least three months ago, you can have your booster dose. That entails if you received your second dosage before or on 3 November before or on 3 November 2021, from Friday you will be eligible to get your booster.That symbolizes on Friday, 1 million more New Zealanders will be able to get there booster. It also symbolizes around an extra 100,000 Maori will be eligible for a booster representing a 59% increase in Maori eligibility from Friday. An additional 52,000 pacific parties going to be able representing a 47% increase. That raises us to a total of simply over 3 million New Zealanders, 76% of New Zealanders who are fully inoculated, will be due for there booster as of Friday. And to this group of New Zealanders who are able to, please go and get your booster as soon as possible. The reason is clear – vaccination is one of the most important things we can do to prepare for and fight the current Omicron outbreak.And although Omicron is for many parties a relatively mild illness, as “were having” seen, it can be very serious for some and it can quickly overwhelm health systems. The booster for parties 18 and over abbreviates the likelihood you will need to go to hospital, and it can also possibly shorten the spread of Omicron. What “were having” seen overseas is if we suffer very high case counts, this will want large amounts of our people need hospital care. It will articulate our hospital method under appreciable persuade and seriously disrupt other important healthcare. The consequences for our nation’s health and well-being will be serious. So going the booster is also about ensuring our health and hospital methods are not overwhelmed, so everyone you adore in local communities who are required to research hospitals can get the care they need in coming months.To corroborate our goal of coming as many boosted as possible, we will be running a big boost campaign throughout February asking New Zealanders to get there booster dose as soon as they are eligible, much like we did with Super Saturday. More items will be provided by Ministry of Health next week. The Booster is part of a plan to reduce the impact of Omicron.Alongside the corroboration of over 50 million rapid antigen measures in the next few months to ensure people can be tested that need to be, our red traffic light provides and updated cover-up lead we are well-positioned for the inevitable spread of Omicron. I will hand over now to Dr Bloomfield to talk to the updated advice and set out the latest science on the added benefit of boosters, and then we will make questions. Half >> Thank you, “Ministers “. Kia ora koutou katoa. As the Prime Minister said 94% perfectly vaccinated is an extraordinary number and I want to acknowledge the evenly remarkable piece lay in by our vaccination teams around the country to make this possible.It’s also genuinely pleasing to see that Maori vaccination paces are now touching 90% for the first quantity, and 85% perfectly inoculated. Kia ora, nga mihi, that’s fantastic. We are well underway with the next stage of protecting our communities, they are able to paediatric vaccine available to parents and caregivers to make a decision around injecting 5 to 11 -year-olds. It’s great to see over one third of our tamariki are already vaccinated. I want to acknowledge our external science and technical advisors who worked over the weekend to provide this advice to support the announcement today.The science demonstrates people who are fully injected with two dosages of the Pfizer vaccine are well protected if they are infected with Omicron. Especially from becoming seriously ill. We have investigated the impact of this most recently in our Delta outbreak. However, the protection does drop over season and it appearing in surfacing discipline relatively quickly for protection against Omicron. Hence the need for the boosters. The good information is there is clear evidence that with that booster dose of the Pfizer vaccine, people’s defence goes back up to same grades to what it was for Delta with the two dosages. That is well over 90% protection against serious illness or hospitalisation. The prove also suggests that there is some protection from the booster against get fouled by or giving COVID-1 9 to others. And we continue to watch the evidence to see that emerge. With Omicron rapidly becoming the dominant form of the virus internationally and now here in in Aotearoa, it’s important we do everything we can.Moving to the three-month interval is important to our efforts to fight Omicron and I just wanted to suggest everyone to get your booster as soon as it is due. While we cannot administer boosters to all the members of the 1 million on this Friday, I can assure you we have excellent faculty across our organisation and we certainly have a good afford of inoculation. It’s even more important that people at serious hazard of either get COVID-1 9 illnes, or suffering scourge consequences of it, get there booster.That includes our border and healthcare workers, many of whom are already boosted and who are required to be improved later this month. Our older people, all Maori and Pacific parties, beings in aged residential care and people with underlying health conditions including mental health conditions. There is considerable work underway by our crews to make sure that boosters are easily accessible to these groups, and likewise we have got a lot of work underway to improve access to the vaccine, the paediatric vaccine, for our tamariki Maori and Pasifika over coming weeks. We want to see the rates of vaccination increase. Lastly some information on boosters and side effects. International data shows that boosters have a very good safety profile and I am pleased to say we are seeing a same blueprint here.With now well over 1 million dosages of the Pfizer vaccine administered as a booster now, our data suggests that it follows a very similar safe sketch to the second dose. In general, we have found it is the second dose that people report the most side effects from. But the side effects from the booster follow a same decoration and we have not seen an increase in those common side effects such as muscle aches, suffering at the dose website, headaches and nausea and so on. For most people who get these, they are mild and they don’t last long. Overall our reports of adverse events following vaccination have lessened after each added vaccination, and this is particularly so importantly that at this early stage we have not seen any increase in the reporting rate of those rare but serious side effects that we monitor closely. That includes severe allergic reactions like anaphylaxis and inflammation of the heart, myocarditis.Finally there is a lot of interest in weather 12 to 17 – ear-olds can receive a boast – recall dose and when. I am expecting advice on this next week. At the same time functional crews are looking at what it would take to implement the changes to roll out such a program should the science and other opinion brace that booster for all or some of that age group. So we will be providing that advice to the government in the next couple of weeks, thank you. >> Thank you, Dr Bloomfield. Now we will make questions. I will try and direct traffic, but also Dr Ian Town is happy to take questions of a more technological quality. >>( INAUDIBLE) >> The first thing I would say is we need to make sure we stand up all the infrastructure around this alter peculiarly the ability to book online. Making sure we alter our structure so they now allow you to book after that shorter window. Too at the same time establishing sure that alongside all the existing platforms we have suffer up all the resources required to kickstart. The decision was formalised today. Exec Council will finalise the decision today, and then on Friday we are ready to start delivering. That is a very fast turnaround. >> Omicron is already spreadin, wouldn’t this have been better if we had done it a couple of weeks ago so parties in the — people’s immunity would be kicking in? >> In terms of the timing, “were having” moved as soon we had the advice from the technological crew whereas it is necessary to do so. We are likewise, relative to other countries, still earlier today in the Omicron outbreak. 140 suits per period. While we expect that to increase there is still time for people to go and get there booster in the next week and have the added benefit of that booster for this outbreak. We are really encouraging people, don’t introduced it off. Please take the opportunity now and retain a number of parties have already gone out and said and done. I wouldn’t mind just letting some of the technical team respond to the time in question, though. >> Thanks, Prime Minister. The only other thing I would contribute is of course the evidence around that interval is emerging all the time.We have looked other countries move to a shorter interval than six months, which is what Pfizer tested in the trials and has applied for. We were early movers regarding this matter and what is different between us and the other countries that have a three- onth interval, we are doing it very early on in the eruption whereas they were doing it in response to a really large number of cases in their local communities. So now is the right time, “weve had” the scientific admonition, teams have worked hard to make sure we have vaccine out there and we are ready to roll on Friday. >> Thank you, the original interim in the trial was 6 months, last year we moved it down to 4 months full stop the reason for that is the antibody evidence tends to start going down after 2 to 3 months, and that is why the protection is not quite as good following the end of the six-month period full stop bringing it forward to 3 months now, as they have done recently in the UK and most Australian countries, wants as the director-general has said, we can get that rank of antibodies and immune protection to peak before we are confronted with widespread full stop — We don’t think there are any negative side effects. 3 months between quantities of the vaccine has been recognized on, so it doesn’t appear to be any downside. Is the director-general has observed, were not seeing any changes in the side effects. >>( inaudible) setback >> Protection will start to arise immediately, within hours, that is why you get a sore arm, and progressively over the fortnight, the antibodies rise. >>( inaudible) update your boosters to the( inaudible ). >> Quick statement, we have done our planning on a high uptake, so between 95% and 100%. And that lies with everybody, including those delivering shots, as well as the communications campaign. I want to emphasise this to parties. Numerous people, of course, we were pushing for months, was to doses is completely inoculated. Prove is really clear, that is great for Delta , not so much better for Omicron. The good report is with the booster, protection level rises back up to the high level that it was with the 2 doses for Delta. So we will be pushing hard to get this for everybody, and we can vaccinate, we have enough vaccine to inject everyone who becomes eligible at 3 months. >>( inaudible) >> I don’t have any early details on that, but we will provide more detail in the next few days. >> Maoris in the 2 approach campaign? >> We have had a range of input. I would say in particular around our rollout of the inoculations to children, we are engaging from December last year with our Maori advisers, and designing the program and initiatives for tamariki Maori. We have not undoubtedly installed a task force, but we know we have excellent expertise. I will say, Dr town behind me, this is one of the key issues our technological advisory group took into account, and a number of the members of that group are Maori and plied strong opinion about the importance of ensuring that the the interim. Quite a balance didn’t ended their primary copulation until early last year, so we want to bring forward their boosters. >> In calls of Maori lead solutions, why are 3 months after organisations was also being stalled and declined in their programs? How countless Maori lead health services when it comes to COVID are being( inaudible )? >> I can’t speak to an individual arrangement, but you will recall we had a significant boost in funding both component room through the rollout in the beginning to individual organisations to make sure we were accelerating our vaccination campaign.We can see now that has made a difference , not only have we got firstly doses part inoculation charges up to 90% for Maori now, we have infrastructure within Maori health providers that will serve us well for future immunisation expeditions as well. So it’s not just about being fund the workers on the ground, they also now have physical resources and — in some cases camper vans, mobile parts that will help continue the booster campaign, a tamariki expedition. Happy to take a specific question. >> A higher tell enhanced hipc initiative for Omicron, back to its make, said we need to do something ourselves, can you help us out? >> Are you saying, it could be wider general reference, are you talking specifically around care in the community, vaccinations? Is very particular element? >> Related to Omicron exclusively. >> Our engagement with Maori providers around care and the community for both Delta and Omicron has were in progress. We have had to make sure we stood of a organisation that worked for Delta. We need to make sure it can expand, deal with a large number of cases, but where the majority were neither kind of level of care that Delta may have required.That has been an ongoing. >> How has the focus on( inaudible) simply Crone — Omicron outbreak( inaudible )? >> I might cause Minister Hitchens answer, at this stage the passport doesn’t expire until June. >> Kia ora everybody. And setting up the vaccine passport sequences, we deliberately employed an expiry date into all past was issued for people who have had their first 2 dosages so we could then make decisions about whether or not to wheel it over was introduced a booster dose requirement. We has not been able to made a formal decision about initiating a booster dose requirement in order to better to keep your tooth to forget or get a new one, but I have previously signalled I think it’s likely later on in the year, in order to keep your vaccine certificate, people will make a booster. >> Will you apologise to Charlotte Dallas? >> I don’t want to comment while she is considering her law options.I will say this case was introduce into my notice a few days ago by another member of Parliament. I contacted Emma IQ to make sure her example was being appropriately treated. Through my part I contacted MIQ, and was given some reassurance they had already been reviewing it and looking at how they could better deal with it, recognising the extraordinary circumstances she faced. >> A solicitor says you transgressed her privacy and were trying to smear. To — >> What about more broadly, most of the pregnant, glad gals overseas who cannot( inaudible )? >> Barry, you may have a question. All of your questions are important! >> The same solicitor representing.
