From the House: Protecting our children – this is the time to move

Stuart Nash is Napier MP.

For children 12 or over, this is your time. The Covid-19 vaccination programme has now moved into overdrive.

On Wednesday this week, vaccine bookings for every eligible age group became possible. We hit the 12-plus milestone once the other age groups and at-risk groups got first priority, and after Medsafe approved the vaccine for use in young people.

There is an emerging groundswell of parents and caregivers who want to do more to protect their children from the risk of Covid-19. They also want all the information they can find about the vaccine – and I will cover some of that here.

The latest Covid cluster, in Auckland and Wellington, is unusual – it is very heavily skewed to younger age groups.

As at Thursday this week, there were 273 active cases in that cluster who were teenagers or younger. A further 197 were between 20 and 29. In total, there were 470 active cases aged under 30, from a total of 736 active cases. That is 64 per cent of the total outbreak.

We have seen bookings surge in recent times, as New Zealanders take up the opportunity to book in for their vaccine. The highest date on record so far was August 25, when more than a quarter of a million people booked their appointments. We expect to see another surge in coming days.

A lot of people are indicating they would prefer to take a family-based approach to vaccination, rather than arranging shots for their children through schools or at classroom sites. That means that when parents go to get vaccinated, they can take their kids with them and I'd certainly encourage families to take that approach.

I want to give a shout-out to everyone in the Hawke's Bay DHB area who is involved in the vaccination programme. The most recent figures, as at last weekend, show about 120,000 doses of the vaccine have been administered in our region, more than 2000 doses ahead of the DHB plan for this point.

Across the country, more than 85 per cent of people aged 65-plus have now been vaccinated with at least one dose. Using our older Kiwis as an example, that does pose a challenge to younger generations to come forward and receive your vaccinations.

The Pfizer vaccine is highly effective if people have both doses. Studies show about 95 per cent of people who have received both doses of the vaccine, are protected against getting severe Covid-19 symptoms. That means once you are fully vaccinated you are far less likely to fall seriously ill and less likely to transmit the virus to others. It's the best way to protect you, your family and your community. We will not run out of vaccines.

So thank you to New Zealanders for coming forward, making your bookings, and getting your vaccine. That is really important in our fight against Covid-19, and I encourage everybody to take up the opportunity. Vaccinations are one of the most powerful tools we have against Covid-19. They are completely free and they are safe.

It's really important that if anyone has questions about the vaccine or the threat of Covid-19, that they get information from reliable sources, like the websites of the Ministry of Health and Unite Against Covid-19, or from your DHB or health provider.

The highest possible uptake is the best way for us to get back to a greater sense of normality, and then, of course, stay there.

We can be proud of what we've done to protect one another from Covid-19. Let's not waste our hard work. Book your vaccinations today either on the bookmyvaccine.nz website or by calling 0800 28 29 26.

Stuart Nash is Napier MP