New Zealand’s government has announced it has bought enough Covid-19 vaccines from Pfizer to inoculate its entire population following concerns about the effectiveness of the AstraZeneca jab, which the country initially ordered.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced the order from Pfizer and BioNTech on Monday, after increasing the country’s original request from 1.5 million doses to 10 million doses, enough to vaccinate the entire nation against Covid-19.
“This brings our total Pfizer order to 10 million doses or enough for 5 million people to get the two shots needed to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19,” Ardern said.
The new batch of vaccines from Pfizer is expected to be delivered to New Zealand in the second half of 2021.
The New Zealand prime minister explained that the government had decided to shift to Pfizer as its main vaccine provider after trial data showed the jab was 95 percent effective at preventing symptomatic infection.
