Answers Please? Tribulations Of Getting A Covid19 Vaccine ‘2nd Booster’

I try to write about general issues of importance, in a
general – indeed global – context. This time I will
write just about me.

I am the same age as Phil Goff,
Mayor of Auckland. And I want to be appropriately protected
from Covid19. I have had three shots of the Pfizer Covid19
vaccine. My most recent vaccination – the so-called
booster – was on the first of February this year. On 27
June I enquired about getting another ‘booster’ shot on
Tuesday 28 June, before going away ‘on holiday’ on 30 June.
I was not allowed to, because of a set of rules
that have never been adequately explained.
(RNZ‘s Kathryn
Ryan tried to ask an expert on 13 July, but gave up in
frustration.) The best I could do was to get a vaccination
booking at my local Health Centre, for Wednesday 3
August.

(Between 28 June and 3 August, about 700
people in New Zealand will have died with Covid19. The
substantial majority of these are Pakeha aged over 70 who
received a booster vaccination ahead of the March wave of
Covid19, and who have died (or will soon die) of Covid19.
How many of these are dying for want of a vaccine
booster? A rhetorical question. But the answer
will be that at least one of these would have had a booster
had they been allowed.)

I am classed as being in the
‘vulnerable age group’. Now, I’m not ‘very old’. But if I
was the same age as Joe Biden, or even Jimmy Carter, I would
also have been refused. I’ll bet that Jimmy Carter faced no
impediments in getting a fourth vaccination shot. But Jim
Bolger will have had to wait.

Anyway, I continue to be
one of the dwindling number of people who has yet to get
Covid19. Today, I asked if I could get my vaccination
booking brought forward to Monday 1 August. “No”, they said,
“we only do Covid19 vaccinations on Wednesdays and
Thursdays”.

So I went to the local shopping mall. At
the first pharmacy, I asked if I could come in for a vaccine
on Monday 1 August? They said I could ‘walk-in’ any time
from Tuesday 2 August. Why not Monday I asked; after-all
Monday will be six months since my previous shot. They said
I had to wait six months plus one
day!! I asked why the Ministry of Health (MoH)
requires that I wait that extra day. They had no
answer.

So I went to another pharmacy and asked the
same question. They said that “I could try coming in on
Monday”, and that they can sometimes override the MoH
computer. It was a roundabout way of confirming that I am
meant to wait ‘six months plus one day’. I further
questioned the Ministry of Health’s reason for this extra
day’s wait, but the pharmacist had no explanation. He did
say, though, to come in on Monday 1 August, implying that he
would be able to do the system override.

At first
impression, this situation – the needlessly long six-month
wait – is a case of ‘bureaucracy gone mad’, killing a
significant number of New Zealanders. And, regardless of the
answer to that question, why must I wait that extra day
beyond the six months?

MoH: Please just
answer – not necessarily to me personally,
but preferably to this publisher – these three
questions? [Reminder: I got my third ‘first
booster shot ‘ on 1 February 2022.]

• What is the
  medical reason why I cannot get my Covid19 ‘second booster’
  on Friday 29 July?
• Why was I told by a health
  professional that I will not be allowed to get my Covid19
  ‘second booster’ on Monday 1 August?
• Given the large
  number of people who become eligible for another vaccination
  in August, when and how will you tell the
  vaccination-willing New Zealand public that the rule is that
  they must wait ‘six months plus one
  day’?

————-

Keith Rankin (keith at
rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a
retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in
Auckland, New
Zealand.

© Scoop Media