7.1 Vaccination Te rongoā āraimate
Home Reports Main Report Part Two: Looking back 7.1 Vaccination
Introduction | Kupu whakataki
From the start of the pandemic, the prospect of a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine provided a beacon of hope in an otherwise bleak global landscape. Government messaging presented vaccination or new treatments as the justification for – and pathway out of – the initial elimination strategy and the restrictions it involved. This message clearly resonated with many members of the public, including some who made submissions to our Inquiry:
“Lockdowns were totally necessary until such time a vaccine was approved and available. We saw what was happening in the rest of the world and it was horrifying.”
Vaccination remained fundamental to the effectiveness of Aotearoa New Zealand’s pandemic response, even after the country moved away from the elimination strategy. By the time community transmission became well-established, most of the population had received at least one dose of the vaccine and a large proportion had both initial doses on board. From this point on, optimising population immunity through vaccination was a crucial pillar of the country’s long-term approach to managing the virus.
What’s in this chapter
- This chapter begins by describing the process of identifying, procuring and approving a suitable vaccine, which proceeded alongside the development of Aotearoa New Zealand’s immunisation programme (sections 7.2.1 and 7.2.2).
- In section 7.2.3, we survey how the vaccine was made available to the community (we refer to this as ‘the vaccine rollout’) and, in 7.2.4, the subsequent provision of boosters. Section 7.2.5 describes steps taken to sustain population immunity once Aotearoa New Zealand had moved away from the elimination strategy to a minimisation and protection approach.
- Our assessment of outcomes and impacts is set out in section 7.3. The evidence we reviewed highlights some positive outcomes: vaccination undoubtedly protected Aotearoa New Zealand from the very high burden of illness and death many other countries faced, and the national rollout achieved high levels of vaccine coverage. However, the evidence also reveals missed opportunities to ensure vaccine uptake and access were equitable across the community – an issue we address in sections 7.3.1.1 and 7.3.2 (which includes a spotlight on the work of Māori and Pacific vaccine providers).
- We also assessed the management of the rollout (in section 7.3.1.2), the way vaccine hesitancy and misinformation affected vaccine uptake (7.3.1.3), and the efficacy of processes for procuring and approving the vaccine (7.3.3 and 7.3.4) before presenting our final conclusions.
- Vaccine mandates are dealt with in Chapter 8, along with vaccine passes.