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all right good afternoon everybody i'm here today to provide a general update on the northland january case that we've been dealing with this uh this week and some general remarks around new zealand's approval and supply process around vaccines before i hand over to the director general for some of the finer information around our northland case i'm very pleased to confirm that all of the close contacts of the case have now been tested the results have returned and all have been negative of course there's still a lot of work going on around the investigation and this is an encouraging development in that process it provides a bit of further reassurance around the way the response to the case has been managed and i'm very encouraged by it there's also some additional good news on the cover 19 response front i've received figures across my desk this morning in terms of the total number of tests that we have processed so ten thousand eight hundred and twelve tests were processed yesterday which takes us to a total of one million five hundred and four thousand three hundred and nine tests since the covert 19 pandemic began each one of those tests including the tests from northland yesterday uh is helping to keep our community safe we're hugely appreciative of everybody who has taken a test or who has had a test or who has administered the test it's a huge undertaking our testing rate of over one and a half million tests means that we have uh equal with australia the highest rate of testing per positive case of anywhere in the world and i think that shows that new zealanders are all playing their part getting the tests when they need to get a test so that we can ensure that we keep covert 19 out of our community so particular thanks once again to those who are working on the front lines administering those tests it is a an integral part of our response i'll now hand over to the director general and then i'll have a few more comments on vaccines before we get into questions thank you minister kirakota katoa i'll start today with the routine case numbers update there are four new border related cases of covert 19 since 9am yesterday morning all in managed isolation and quarantine facilities there is one further historical case another previously reported case has now been reclassified as under investigation and our total number of active cases is 68. i will update you as the minister mentioned on the northland case now including testing results and contact tracing before i do i just want to reiterate our thanks to everyone in the community and those in the health workforce locally and throughout the country for hard work patience and cooperation as we've moved to respond to this case the initial response to a case like this does present his logistical challenges but it's a swift action of those involved including those who follow the public health messages that ensures the response is successful in heading off any community transmission they're encouraging signs in northland so far but a reminder the situation is involving and we're not breathing out just yet so as the minister mentioned all of the close contacts of the northland case have returned negative results the public health unit has reconsidered the classification of the close contacts and actually only 11 are genuine or we might call true close contacts those are the ones who will remain in isolation for the full 14-day period since they last had contact with the case and will be retested the important thing is that the test results on the entire 16 who were initially considered close contacts have been confirmed as negative uh in terms of other contact tracing there are 353 guests who departed the pullman hotel between the 9th and 24th of january remembering that the 9th of january was the date that the what we might call index case here uh inside the facility arrived there we previously reported that number as 357 but three of those people have actually gone returned overseas and another one was a duplicate of these 353 guests all have been contacted and 255 have returned a negative test so far and our contact tracing center is following up with the other 98 departed guests to ensure that they either have been or are being tested 14 of those contacted reported some symptoms when they were contacted and 13 of those people have already returned a negative test result and one is pending uh yesterday we reported 157 staff from the pullman hotel were being tested and that figures now been increased and updated to 212 and we will be able to give an update uh on the number of test tests pending from that group later on but all the results that we have so far on the staff from the pullman have come back negative now just as part of the follow-up of those who have departed those 353 guests our past experience shows that we may find one or two positive test results and in fact yesterday we had initial test results that came back positive on two people and further investigation which we do immediately with further testing and serology was able to demonstrate that one of those cases was historical or one of those test results was an historical case and one was not a case now we've seen this in our facilities where sometimes we'll see people have negative day zero one tests negative day three tests even negative day seven tests if they're considered a possible close contact of someone from a flight but then return a positive test later in their visit so this is a situation where someone has previously been infected and the test which can be very sensitive may just pick up a fragment of the virus and return an initial positive result we may get other positive results like this and each one we will investigate if we think further action is required of course we will undertake that further action immediately uh as the minister mentioned over 10 000 tests processed yesterday and over 8 000 of those were in the auckland and northland regions a testament to staff doing testing out in the community in our general practices and at other locations and i want to thank them as well as our lab staff i understand that by yesterday afternoon the testing stations were clearing for the most part uh any backlog and health line is also reporting just short wait times of around five minutes uh to date 327 people have been confirmed as having been at one of the 31 locations of interest and either through push notification or media publicity and so far we have negative test results on 127 of those people remember people are a priority and should be isolating and getting tested if they were at a venue that the case was at in northland at the same time and on the same date or of course anyone who has symptoms whether in northland or anywhere else around the country and finally uh as the minister mentioned i have mentioned we've had uh some increased use of the covert tracer app which is pleasing over a million scans done uh in the 24 hours to midday yesterday several hundred thousand people have now turned on bluetooth and i just want to demonstrate how you might do that an important point is this is a specific requirement inside the app it's not just having bluetooth turned on on your phone and if you're in the app it will look like that the dashboard will look like that and if you have bluetooth turned on uh the second line down will have a green there it shows i have bluetooth turned on it's very easy to turn on you don't really want to be turning it off if you've got it on but you just go into it and then turn it on and it will show green please do do that and keep scanning the bluetooth functionality complements the qr code scanning both as we have seen in this case in northland are incredibly helpful for us being able to respond if we do get a case covert 19 is a tricky virus it's up to everyone to take these simple actions we've shown we can in the past the virus is the problem and people are the solution thank you minister thank you dr bloomfield just wanted to make a few additional remarks on vaccines there is a huge amount of interest in vaccines both in new zealand and around the world uh understandably so we want new zealanders to be reassured that our processes are robust and that we are moving as quickly as we can we are getting the balance right here between moving rapidly whilst also ensuring that the process is very very thorough and new zealanders can have confidence when we do roll out the vaccine that it has been through the necessary approvals process as the prime minister outlined yesterday next tuesday medsafe will seek advice and recommendations from the medicines assessment advisory committee around the pfizer vaccine which is the first vaccine we're expecting to arrive in new zealand the ministerial expert advisory committee will then review medsafe's assessment and depending on their feedback medsafe could be in the position to grant provisional approval as soon as the following day which would be wednesday the 3rd of february well in advance of any expected delivery of the fisa vaccine so i want to reiterate uh very very clearly that the thorough process that med safe has been through has in no way delayed the arrival of any vaccines here in new zealand uh the approval is still uh and unless of course they decline it but the approval if the approval happens next week is still well in advance of when we would be expecting to receive any shipments of the fisa vaccine so we recognize that there is significant public interest in dates the data in which we start vaccinations is of course important a more important date though is when we finish our vaccination process so i do want to reiterate this is likely to be a year-long process it's important to note when we start vaccinating vaccines will not be available to the public at large our first shipments of vaccines will be very carefully targeted to those most at risk which in the first instance will include our border workers those working in our managed isolation facilities and their closest contacts and then as we progress we will expand the net out wider we do want to scale up to making vaccines available to the general public as quickly as we can but that will depend on the supply being available so what i want to reiterate today is that we we do hope to take our first delivery of fisa vaccines as soon as we can um the mid-safe process being complete is an integral part of that uh and then of course we then have to wait until pfizer is able to send those now happy to take your questions well we've got a diversified portfolio as we've mentioned before we've purchased four different vaccines um you can never anticipate when you when you begin a process like this you know what what's going to be first what the delivery sequence is going to be what the efficacy rates of the different vaccine candidates are going to be and so if you like new zealand has tried to spread our risk by buying into four different vaccine candidates astrazeneca we have some you know pre-purchase agreements with them i know that they will be working hard to deliver those but again i just want to highlight this is an an international crisis that we're dealing with there will be very heavy demand for vaccines right the way around the world uh and new zealanders you know we're working very hard to make sure we get the supplies that we need our vaccines here in new zealand well i mean if you if you just look at the mess um on that it's actually you have to vaccinate about 10 million times to get to 5 million people because you'll need a double dose of that depending on how many uh we can get up to a day if we were getting up to say 50 000 a day you do the math that's about 200 days it would take uh to complete the overall vaccination campaign it may well be that we can do have you know a series of targeted uh you know events if you like where we can get those numbers up significantly higher um then than that but we just have to it's it will be a numbers game uh and at this point we're planning for scaling up as quickly as we can we're looking at the workforce and so on just want to reiterate though when the first shipments arrive that's not the space we're going to be and we're going to be in the space of very much focusing those on the workforce that would certainly be something that we would aspire to do again that's going to depend a lot on shipments uh and on you know the the other three vaccines have to go through the appropriate approvals process and so on so there's a lot of water to flow under the bridge but our goal overall is to get a vaccination campaign underway as quickly as we can and to get it completed as quickly as we can but there's still a lot of what-ifs in that in that equation no not necessarily like i said we've purchased four different vaccines and we're expecting several of them to be coming to new zealand in greater numbers towards the middle of the year so we will have some options here look like i said i'm not blind to what's happening around the rest of the world we have done what we can do in terms of getting the pre-purchase agreements that we have and securing the supplies you know to support that so we're doing everything we can at the new zealand end but again you know like i said we can't necessarily control what's happening around the rest of the world but i know that the pharmaceutical companies who are developing the vaccines will be working very hard to fulfill the obligations that they've signed into i'm happy if the director general wants to add to that just one supplementary comment here these vaccines are not being manufactured just in one location and in fact in the case of the astrazeneca vaccine australia has a licensing arrangement to start manufacturing that onshore uh in due course so it's not just dependent on the manufacturing of it in belgium or in one specific country and better resource regulators like so two comments here first of all just to be clear the vaccine has been used in other countries most other countries on the basis of an emergency approval not a not an actual registration process or having gone through a full registration process the second point is medsafe assesses the benefits and risks for the use of any medicine or vaccine here in new zealand depending on the situation here and of course we would want them to look at the benefit risk equation for new zealanders that doesn't mean to say they are not using the data in particular that the tga have been working closely with the australian tga but also they're using the information and data that those other regulators have used as well to help inform their decision-making process here to help ensure that it is safe and effective for use in our circumstances in new zealand about new zealand circumstances that make us different to anybody else in the world getting well what is unique at the moment of course maybe not unique but new zealand is amongst a small number of countries where we don't have wide community transmission and and an extent significant outbreak and emergency and that's where the countries have done most of the vaccination to date are in that situation we're not okay going back to jesus's very first question do you agree with the principle that countries which which have are seeing cover 19 right throughout the community should be ahead of the cube than new zealand look that is the reality that is what is happening now and it's very difficult on humanitarian grounds to argue against that i think one of the things the world health organization have warned against uh is the the whole notion of vaccine nationalism and i think it's a very pertinent warning to everyone around the world we all need to be thinking about that would new zealand consider or has new zealand considered using diplomatic and trade channels against the european union through the wto or something to ensure that it upholds its existing commitments to free trade in terms of exporting things that other countries and companies have paid for look that's all very premature at this point i think we've got a little bit of water to flow under the bridge before we would have those kind of conversations pfizer vaccine gets uh approved by medsay for people who have received both doses overseas of the pfizer vaccine would any rules change for them coming into the country whether you know if they're new zealanders coming in or even would there be wool changes for people who are not new zealanders but have been vaccinated um to be honest i can't see that happening quickly i've always said that you know in terms of our border restrictions vaccination will play a role here at some point um i don't think that's likely to be sudden or quick you know i think it's likely to happen over a period of time um but it's it's still too early um to get into what that might look like australia's today started rolling out an advertising campaign for their vaccine when can we expect to have that sort of campaign ramping up here in new zealand to educate people before the vaccine lands so we are working on that preparation is underway for a public campaign a public awareness campaign a public reassurance campaign around the fact that you know the vaccine's safe and again i want to reiterate our approvals process is an important uh an important part of that we do see from new zealanders um what the director general and i would both have described as vaccine hesitancy so it's not that people are necessarily opposed to vaccination so they want to know when they're getting it that it's going to be safe so our approvals process here and and providing reassurance that it's a very thorough process is actually a really important part of our public campaign towards preparing to to start rolling out the vaccines around the country but we will have a paid advertising campaign and uh you know you've seen that we can do that very effectively we've had some very effective advertising campaigns over the summer we had very effective advertising campaigns during our lockdown uh we'll we'll be making sure that we've got a a good uh public advertising campaign to win when we're when we need to do that and and in advance of the rollout do you have a budget for that at this point um i i don't have a number of the top of my head but i can certainly get you an indication of the sort of money that we'd uh be intending to spend on that would you would you want to be rolling it out in the next couple of weeks months or february march it's likely i mean i'll ask the director general i know he's been involved in helping to put the campaign together we will be aiming to roll out the campaign before we start making vaccines available to the public so there are two parts to it one is making sure that all the information is available credible information is available to people and then there is as the minister said the public advertising communication campaign about the vaccine when people can expect it and so on uh and you'll start to see that in the next few weeks so you just mentioned targeted events once the vaccine is being rolled out to public does that look like pop-up centers like for example with testing but just to get the jab that's right so i think we will be looking at you know it is ultimately going to be a numbers game once we get to the point where we have enough vaccines to to start making them publicly available at that point it really does become how quickly can we make them available um what's the best use of resource as well so is it better to spread smaller numbers more thinly or actually focus on some you know significant throughput so those are all the sorts of you know equations that are being worked through um finalizing those kind of plans can't really be done until we've actually got a more accurate delivery schedule so we know exactly what's arriving when it's arriving because that will help to inform things such as you know who gets which vaccine um so all of that stuff is you know there's a whole lot of different options that have been worked through in planning but we won't be able to lock that down until we've got you know a little bit further ahead welcome can you can you remind us of the proportion of the population you think will have to be vaccinated in order for this to be effective and uh have you commissioned or received any sort of pollen or survey data on what portions of the population are prepared to go and get vaccine so i can respond to both those questions i think we'd want to see at least 70 percent of the population vaccinated and of course in part that depends too on the efficacy of the individual vaccine the results we've had from uh vaccines like pfizer with 90 to 95 percent of this here it's very high really good others may be a bit lower than that but that's that's still very high but obviously the higher the better and in terms of your second question yes we have been doing some uh population surveying and what we know at the moment in this with some results just in december around 70 of people say that yep they if they had good information they wouldn't hesitate to get the vaccine there's another 20 of people who would want to be really assured and i would call that group the vaccine hesitant they need good information they need advice from people they trust and then somewhere up to 10 of people at this point are saying that they wouldn't be vaccinated figure landed on can you just talk us through that because compared to you know vaccines when you're familiar with like measles and those sort of things up in the 90s i would call that a minimum level and i'm using that because i've seen others scientific scientific colleagues use that figure it depends on the efficacy of the vaccine the key point here is that the more people who are vaccinated the more people who are have individual protection and the more likely we are to be able to get that herd immunity effect where we stop any transmission within the community if the virus is there we'll come up here just on the northern case if any of her close contacts require a second test because they've developed symptoms since the first time they were tested not at this point but all close contacts do receive a second test before they finish that isolation period can you clarify who exactly is required to self-isolate for 14 days in terms of her close contacts and who is it so it will be the revised number which is the 11 so those are people who had um you know more prolonged direct contact with her some quite extensive her her partner and others who may have i think were in a retail setting who spent a period of time perhaps over 15 minutes in reasonably close contact with her those are the ones who would do the full 14 days from their last exposure audrey yeah colleague can you please comment on how you think northland reacted generally to this um case and what you would do differently next time because of it look i mean i i'll make some introductory remarks and so i think northland responded incredibly positively i think there was a bit of anxiety certainly in the early phase as the as there always is um in a situation like this but i think uh northlanders generally uh proactively went out and sought testing if they were showing symptoms did all of the right things i think the particular the case concerns did all of the right things in terms of keeping very good records that allowed us to get ahead of any potential outbreak so i think this is the system operating as as we would hope that it would operate would you do anything differently next time i think every one of these that i have been involved in the response to has been different from the last so you always look back on it we haven't really had the chance to do that with this one yet and say are there areas where we could change the way we do things um but what i've discovered is that the next time you know you deal with something it's never the same as one of the ones that you've dealt with before but again i'll ask the director general to comment on both of those things yes one of the particular things we're really focused on is the the weights that people have at testing station we know stations we know there's going to be that pressure and even though we stand up a lot of extra testing capacity i've talked with my colleagues across government yesterday and the team is going to work on what else we can do to because i don't think it is acceptable if people have to wait for hours especially if it's hot and in a car and that and they need access to food and water and obviously bathroom facilities so we're looking at ways we can immediately surge in support from others for example it might be civil defence team or police to help with the management of those cues and perhaps walk have people walking through them protected and finding out whether that people there actually do need to be tested if so do some allocate times out where they can go away and come back make sure there are bathroom facilities available in food and water so i think that's something we could do better uh it there's always this immediate interest in a lot of it's because people are worried and so we should be able to do better on that generation do you accept any responsibility for this i mean we've been through setting up testing stations a number of times now why are you still not getting it right well i think what we are getting right is is getting the testing stations widely available and getting people through there and getting tested and we've seen this happen a few times i should note that we also saw it happen and it happened in australia i saw the reports there from last month as well so we just were thinking yesterday what are some things we can and should be doing to actually improve the experience for people next time still the continuation of conflicting advice with health lines saying get a test and then people turning up to testing stations being told they don't need one why is that still happening well we work really hard on getting a common script for healthline and for those who are testing and of course for our general practices to make sure there is alignment occasionally there are mixed messages and we just keep reiterating that out but the important thing is that if people are concerned or they get mixed messages that they do call healthline and get a clear stare okay we'll come back over here have you been advised when you'll be receiving that specific delivery um schedule from pfizer and will you how much notice we actually need to organize scheduling for staff resources to actually administer it once it arrives i think the key thing for us is making sure we're ready to go whenever it does arrive um so that planning is well advanced the ministry of business innovation and employment who are managing our facilities uh our isolation and quarantine facilities are working very hard to make sure that they've got a good system in place not just for the staff members but for their families as well and so that involves you know getting getting some lists together of who we want to be vaccinating in that early wave of of vaccines so that preparation's well underway in terms of the overall schedule um fiser you know i don't want to put my penny down on a particular schedule until pfizer can come back and say look we're locked in and at that point they haven't done that so everything else up until that point is a is a discussion but i'm not going to set out what that what those discussions are because until they actually say this is what we're going to do and this is what we're signing up to i don't want to you know get ahead of that can you just provide an update on the northland woman sort of how she's faring whether she's isolating at home and how that's being monitored yes actually she's now considered recovered because she has met the definition of 10 days since symptom onset and at least 72 hours symptom-free she's still at home with her partner who is isolating for the period so still around home so i'm very pleased that she is not just uh considered recovered but that she has recovered from the illness and she's well again are you making any changes to protocols and managed isolation in light of this recent case and and how will you be communicating that and how will it roll out so certainly we always look after these kind of cases you know other things that we can learn from this other things that we can do better as i've mentioned before we've been doing regular rolling uh infection prevention and control audits and our managed isolation facilities every one of those has come up with some further improvements that we can make uh that process will continue we're in a continual improvement cycle here i don't think we will i've yet to get to the point where i'm i'm happy to say look we've done everything we can there's always going to be new things that we can that we can do and we'll keep looking for those new things so yes there are likely to be further changes as a result of what we find from this we're working through that process now it's a again there's a question about getting the balance right here between completing the current investigation process and making sure we're doing all of the response uh part of that as quickly as we can whilst at the same time saying are there further changes we can make in response you know to prevent these kind of things in the future there's also an otago's pub that's been offering a 10 discount if you scan in do you think that places should be incentivizing people to do it and would you encourage this kind of behavior to help people get in the mode and have that scanning culture i'd certainly encourage it what i don't want to do is end up in a position where people are just scanning every qr code they walk past willy lilly even if it's even if they're not going to that place just because they want to get their numbers up and increase their chances of winning something for example so um look no human beings are perfect but we can certainly uh encourage people to be scanning and if businesses are out there encouraging people to scan that's a good thing i've mentioned before making sure that qr codes are very prominent everywhere readily available um that they're in good condition something that every business can do i've been to places where they've had them on the tables so if you don't scan on the way and you can scan as soon as you sit down all of those sorts of things actually make a difference um and so i'd encourage everybody to be doing that a nelson cafe is banning people who've recently left managed isolation after the latest community case what's your reaction to that um look i don't think uh that people should be making up their own set of rules here this is the same response i've given to all of these sorts of things where people take their own initiative and do things that are potentially infringing on other people's rights and freedoms we are working very hard to keep our team of five million all rowing in the same direction and so while i do understand the anxiety and the concern we wouldn't be releasing people from managed isolation if we thought that there was a risk that they were bringing covert 19 into the community that's what the process is designed to stop and across the 100 000 plus people now who have left managed isolation we have dealt with a handful of incidents uh where we've been able to contain those very very quickly still the government needs to have stricter rules for the release of returnees from managed isolation perhaps an extra test are you considering that so as i foreshadowed uh i was either yesterday or the day before we are looking at the end of stay protocols and whether any further changes should be made there we'll come up again the ask minister um has there been changes to the funding for testing stations north of whangarei i know there hasn't been any any uh my i haven't seen any evidence that funding is an issue um so i think uh capacity is always an issue um but uh but funding is is not the capacity constraint if you like we've we fund what we need to fund in order to get the testing done what sort of talks have you had with australia about resuming travel are you expecting travel to resume tomorrow night with that one-way bubble no i haven't had any conversations in the last sort of 18 or so hours since i last stood here the prime minister is in regular contact with scott morrison i'm not sure whether they have had a conversation since our update yesterday but obviously that's a decision for australia bearing in mind that the travel between new zealand and australia was a unilateral decision by the australian so they made the decision to remove uh isolation for new zealanders arriving in australia it wasn't part of our transtasman bubble we haven't got to that point yet but you know we continue to have those conversations with them and a question for a colleague leaders in northland are telling people over 50 to stay at home to prevent getting infected are they overreacting like i said i think people should follow the public health guidance i think it's really important that people don't start issuing their own guidance that's the sort of thing that leads to people being confused uh and potentially ending up doing the wrong thing just a question for dr blamfield if if we reach this 70 figure that you talked about the vaccinations does that mean that you would feel confident then giving advice to the government that they could reopen the borders uh we'd have to see because it depends of course which 70 have been vaccinated and i dare say whilst 70 as a figure it would be a minimum where our aspiration is way higher than that we would be aspiring to get up around ninety percent and we would be making sure that every new zealander had the opportunity to receive the vaccine okay i'll take a couple more questions so what i might do because when we're running short of time as i'll start over here and we will work our way across the room again so jenna how concerned are you with a potential issue of people coming back to new zealand for three months and a few days so that they don't have to pay for miq but they're essentially here for a holiday and how does that happen look you can never wherever we set the line there's a potential that somebody might try and you know find their way around that um we discussed that as a cabinet actually when we were sitting the time frame uh three months is still a a pretty long time to be here um before before you um you're allowed out of if you like of the of the obligation to have having to pay there will be some people uh who can afford to do that who can afford to come back for three months but we're talking i suspect a very very small number of people and and wherever we drew the line we were always going to have that dilemma this is working on a booster shot in the case that's vaccine doesn't work against the variants are we is it something we're looking at purchasing or in discussion advisor look um with the we went through this yesterday you know with the flu jab um there are there are different versions of the flu jab our approvals processes allow for that um with any vaccination campaign you get new new vaccinations but i'll hand over to the director general to talk about particularly about the booster yeah thanks for that and uh our science and technical team just did a nice update on this work uh in the last few days i mean all the vaccine manufacturers are now doing studies in the lab to see if their vaccine produces a similar response to these new emerging variants like the one first identified in the uk or the one first identified in south africa to confirm that they do still have at least in the lab generate the same response or if it's a lower response how much lower and it's very early days yet but as you say pfizer and i imagine other vaccine manufacturers will start to look at whether they need to make any alterations to their current vaccine to help address emerging variants what this does show also is that similar to the influenza virus we would expect this virus to keep changing and that suggests that over time it will be one that we will need to do repeat vaccinations on and the vaccine will need to be updated okay we'll keep working our way across the room yes see any update on how exactly the northland case picked up this uh was infected with kobe 19 and no firm further firm leads as yet but we continue to look at all the different opportunities in particular i know there's a lot of interest in the potential that it was air transmission through that so the aerosol transmission and whether or not it's unlikely if we look at the evidence around the globe but whether or not the ventilation system might have played a role there we had an initial assessment done yesterday of the pullman ventilation system and i'm expecting some some comments and advice back from my team later today on that audrey yeah have you had any advice yet on how many people cancelled flights because of pre-flight testing no i haven't had any um any concrete numbers on that yeah i might be too happy to look into that i think in in some cases um i think mb you know through the through the booking system have been working uh very hard to try if there are there's a need to shuffle a little bit you know say by 24 hours they've been working very hard to try and accommodate that so that do you know i don't know but i'll find out whether they're keeping a telly of the number of people that they've assisted with that while that investigation's been underway um into how the woman got it has there been any additional changes since then to how miu is being handled at the moment oh look the pullman continues to be on a state of high alert if you like um so they're still working very very hard at the pullman just to be that extra bit vigilant um all of this all of our managed isolation facilities are very very vigilant though i would say that you could almost say that they're always on a state of high alert there for flick over 19. um so we continue to look at it you'll see um we made some immediate decisions around delaying the release of some of the people who were due to be released adding those extra tests just for that extra layer of protection something of a cerebral question but is there a point at which uh we have vaccinated enough of our population that we no longer are trying to eliminate copin 19 in other words we're okay with small numbers of cases because there's enough of a vaccinated population that it won't threaten to overwhelm our health system and we'll be able to care for those who do get seriously ill yes there will be a point when we need to adjust our approach from an elimination strategy which is again as you said quite nicely no community transmission or so we eliminate community transmission if we think of other diseases like measles where we have achieved elimination status that is also very dependent on what is happening internationally and hence the comments from the director general of the world health organization actually every country needs the whole global population to achieve a high level of vaccination before we can really get back to what will be a new normal but a different a different sort of world with cover 19. um but clearly the higher our vaccination rates onshore the sooner and more open we will be able to sort of go back to arrangements back to level zero that there will be global elimination of carbon 19 or is it more likely to become endemic but because of vaccination not posed in such a serious threat anymore because of the nature of these viruses it's uh it's more likely to be endemic we've successfully eliminated smallpox we're close to eliminating polio but it's very few diseases that it's possible to eliminate or eradicate i guess is a better word these coronaviruses and influenza viruses do tend to become endemic okay audrey you get the lucky last okay if the worst effective countries should be at the front of the queue and we're so good should we be at the back of the queue for vaccines no because i mean there's still risk for countries who don't aren't currently dealing with community outbreaks so um you know we've we want to get our border workers vaccinated as quickly as we can we want to get as much of the population vaccinated as quickly as we can but i do draw the distinction between the delivery of vaccines on a more regular program and those who are using emergency approvals to vaccinate before that those processes have been completed we don't have justification in new zealand to be using an emergency approvals process at this point well i've always said you know in terms of the regular program as opposed to the emergency program i've always said uh that we're at the front of the queue uh the pre-purchase agreements that we've got are as are you know a right up there in terms of what other countries have been able to secure as well but with your previous comment that you find it hard on a human in a humanitarian sense to say that we should get the vaccine when there's so much trouble out there i think like i said if you look at the emergency approval process and the emergency vaccination campaigns that are happening around the rest of the world uh what not all places but in the places where there are you know where they're dealing with really really big problems um i think that that's justifiable and i think you can understand that on a humanitarian basis and you can understand why the vaccine companies are prioritizing supporting those efforts how can you say we're front of the queue when san for is already vaccinated again look i'm not going to get into every other country's discussions and how they've managed to secure their supplies but if you look at new zealand internationally in terms of the regular supply of shipments we are right at the front of the queue for those thank you very much everybody you