September 12 2021
There are 20 new community Covid cases today, all are in Auckland. No staff or patients have returned a positive case after being in potential contact with the cases in Middlemore Hospital.
Almost 80,000 Aucklanders have had a jab at one of the city's vaccination sites this weekend - bringing the total number of doses delivered in metro Auckland to 1.5 million.
Northern Region Health Co-ordination Centre clinical director Dr Anthony Jordan said it was pleasing so many Aucklanders had heard the call to get vaccinated this weekend, adding there was plenty of capacity and availability for the week ahead as well.
"We have opened up our Airport Park and Ride drive-through and the Trusts Arena to enable those who don't have an appointment yet to get vaccinated now. We want these sites to continue to be busy to ensure everyone is vaccinated as soon as possible," he said.
"If people would prefer to go to our community vaccination centres, GPs and pharmacies they also have bookings available.
Jordan said the weekend vaccination sites were also open to people who had their first doses at the mass vaccination event in Manukau last month but it would take a couple of days to analyse how many of this weekend's vaccinations were from those second doses.
"We will need to take a deeper look at the data on Monday but early indications are that over 8,000 people from this group came through again at the weekend."
The growing number of vaccinations comes as Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern earlier today announced a deal bringing half a million Pfizer Covid-19 vaccines from Denmark.
"There's nothing holding us back now," she said at today's press conference.
Ardern said the Government has secured the extra half a million doses of Pfizer vaccines from Denmark that will start arriving in New Zealand within days.
"This is the second and larger agreement the Government has entered into to purchase additional vaccines to meet the significantly increased demand through September before our large shipments land in October," Ardern said.
"These doses along with the 275,000 doses purchased from Spain last week provide an additional 775,000 to New Zealand's vaccine supplies."
The news comes as almost 80,000 Aucklanders flocked through the city's vaccination sites since Friday - bringing the total number of doses delivered in metro Auckland to 1.5 million.
Ardern said New Zealanders who have not yet been vaccinated are strongly encouraged to do so as soon as possible.
"There is now more than enough vaccine in the country to vaccinate at the world-leading rates we were hitting earlier in the month."
"We are extremely grateful to Denmark for making these vaccines available to help protect Aotearoa New Zealand against the current Delta outbreak."
She said everyone needed to get vaccinated to protect family and loved ones, and to prevent future lockdowns.
"Seventy six per cent of people aged 12 and older are either booked or have received their first dose, but we can't get complacent," Ardern said.
"Other countries with higher rates than this are still experiencing outbreaks, so we need to get vaccination rates up around the country and this extra supply will help with that."
Everyone in New Zealand over the age of 12 is able to get vaccinated for free.
