Covid 19 Omicron: Booster vaccination gap shortens today, a million more kiwis are now eligible

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is this morning visiting Auckland's newest vaccination centre on the city's waterfront to promote boosters.

Ardern is talking to media at The Cloud on the day the gap between the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine and the booster shot is tightened from four months to three.

This week the Government announced the change in the face of the looming Omicron outbreak, saying it would capture an extra million New Zealanders who were still waiting for the shot.

More than 1.3 million people have received the booster shot ahead of today's change.

Ardern today said parts of the West Coast were being evacuated by teams over the course of the day. The weather was expected to mirror the 2012 situation.

She said authorities were closely montoring the situation and NZDF personnel were en route to the district.

On Waitangi Day she said it was important to take stock of what the day means and the progress that had happened.

She said there was always more work to be done but that would always be the case where a document was a living document.

On people coming here critical workers were uppermost in the criteria of people able to come here.

Ardern said throughout the pandemic the government had worked closely with Maori.

This included the vaccination rollout and helping people in their homes with a view to improving all the time.

"I'm confident what we have done here in New Zealand has protected everyone, including Maori."

Ardern said four weeks was a long time in a pandemic. There was a good chance that the later dates in the five step staged reopening to the world would come forward.

She said it was important that vaccinations were widely available for children, but emphasised it was a call for parents to make.

A big focus for us right now is boosters, she said.

She said it provided the best protection against the looming Omicron outbreak.

"Many became eligible today. Please go and get your booster to give you the best chance against Omicron," she said.

She said vaccine passes went through to June but at this stage boosters were not included on the pass. Discussions were underway with the Ministry of Health about including these details.

A similar drive to get people along for booster shots was underway, similar to the Super Saturday event.

Minister for Māori Crown Relations Kelvin Davis said he rejected claims that there had not been enough consulation between the Government and Māori.

"I dispute the calls from some in Maoridom that there hasn't been consultation," said Davis.

He said there had been many conversations and the Government had taken on board a lot of ideas that Maori had offered.

Ardern said we were right at the start of the Omicron outbreak but officials would be keeping an eye on how hospitals were coping with a view to changing protection settings.

She said the booster programme appeared to be slowing the spread of Omicron.

All the experts would agree the strategy is not to have an overwhelmed health system, she said.

What was not clear was whether a slowed Omicron outbreak helped or hindered the situation in the long term.

Ardern said officials were keeping an eye on the impact winter would have on the health system.

This time of year had added benefit in terms of health measures, including being outside, she said.

She said public health experts expected the Omicron landscape in New Zealand to change very quickly and they were monitoring the situation.

The aim was for the outbreak to be managed in a way that would cause the least amount of impact on everyone's daily lives.

Ardern said she wanted the booster rate to be as high as possible to stop people from getting sicker than they needed.

She was not sure why there seemed a slower uptake for booster shots.

Kiwis queue as million more now eligible

New Zealanders are already queuing for early booster jabs, following the Government's move to reduce the wait time from four months to three.

From today, a further one million Kiwis are eligible to get their booster vaccinations early - three months after their second shot, rather than the earlier four-month period, as the Government tries to stay ahead of Omicron.

As well as the additional one million Kiwis, a total of two-thirds of the population over the age of 18, 3,063,823 people, are now eligible.

The advice to shorten the gap came from the director general of health and the Covid-19 Vaccine Technical Advisory Group.

So far 1,399,350 booster shots have been administered.

"I urge every New Zealander who is eligible for a booster to get it as soon as possible. We are in a race against Omicron and the more people who are boosted the more we can reduce the impact of the outbreak," said Covid Response Minister Chris Hipkins.

Vaccination centres visited by the Herald in Auckland this morning were busy, but steady. There was also a line coming out of a vaccination centre set up on Wellington's Lambton Quay mid-morning.

The new vax regulations follow a major border announcement made yesterday which means New Zealanders stuck in Australia can come home without an MIQ stay from February 27.

In a speech to Business NZ, Ardern announced a five-stage plan to completely reopen the borders to the rest of the world by October.

Auckland Airport is set to get a lot busier as borders start to reopen from February 27. Photo / Sylvie Whinray

On this, Covid Response Minister Chris Hipkins was asked this morning on TVNZ's Breakfast if there was anything that could hold off the reopening - he said he could not say.

"Well, we're still in a global pandemic so I can't give guarantees about what might happen in six months' time."

Hipkins said officials would be monitoring the situation over the next few months still.

"We'll become more normalised as time goes on."

Hipkins said the Government did consider how waiting until October to open up borders could impact the tourism industry.

But he acknowledged that many tourists at the moment come from visa-waiver countries and could therefore come in from the middle of the year.

Hipkins compares modelling with weather forecasts - 'I've always been sceptical'

Hipkins this morning admitted being dubious about infection-rate modelling in light of international projections that tens of thousands of new community cases would be surging across New Zealand by this long Waitangi Day holiday weekend.

"I've always been pretty sceptical about the models," he told Newstalk ZB's Mike Hosking.

Questioned on earlier figures that up to 50,000 new cases would be emerging by Waitangi Day - and 80,000 a day a few weeks later - Hipkins described the calculations as useful, saying it was better to have some modelling than none.

"They are useful. It's better to have some modelling than no modelling. It's a little bit like the weather forecast. Some nights they say it's going to rain tomorrow and it turns out being a nice sunny day."

While those predictions came from the international Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), Hosking pointed out the Government was paying millions for local modelling. "Instead of six million (dollars), how about you give me one million, I'll model for you."

Hipkins said people wanted to have confidence that the Government was mindful of what the future might hold and prepare accordingly.

A Covid-19 modeller warns as the border reopens hundreds - if not thousands - of new cases will likely arrive daily. Currently, just under 10 per cent of all arrivals are infected with the virus.

However, with the community outbreak rapidly growing and likely to be in the thousands of cases daily when reopening begins at the end of the month, border cases will make less of an impact, Professor Michael Plank says.

Plank says with about 50 cases a day at the border that could quickly ramp up to 500 as arrivals increased.

Later this morning on Newstalk ZB Hipkins compared modelling figures to the weather forecast.

Modelling based heavily on international projections predicted that tens of thousands of new community cases would be surging across New Zealand by this long Waitangi Day holiday weekend.

"I've always been pretty sceptical about the models," he told Newstalk ZB's Mike Hosking.

Questioned on earlier figures that up to 80,000 new cases would be emerging by Waitangi Day, Hipkins described the calculations as useful, saying it was better to have some
modelling than none.

"It's a little bit like the weather forecast. Some nights they say it's going to rain tomorrow and it turns out being a nice sunny day."

Holidayers heading off for the long weekend have been urged by the Ministry of Health to plan for the potential of having to self-isolate or to stay longer in paid accommodation than planned.

"You are likely to need to self-isolate wherever you become a close contact or test positive, so there may be extra costs involved in paying for accommodation and changing your travel plans," the ministry said in a statement.

They said anyone with Covid-19 symptoms should not travel and should get tested and isolate until they get a negative result back.

The most common early symptoms of Omicron were a sore or scratchy throat and a runny nose.