“The Government will today give itself a big pat on the back for delivering two million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, but it should hold off on its self-congratulations,” says ACT Leader David Seymour.
“To put this into perspective, that’s 40 doses per 100 people. That milestone was met in Israel in January, the UK in mid-March, US in late-March, Singapore in April and Canada and Germany in early-May.
“Across the ditch it was two weeks ago. At least we can still compare ourselves with Bolivia and Peru who are vaccinating at around the same rate.
“You only have to look at Australia to see how dangerous the Delta variant is and how quickly things can spiral out of control.
“Labour has set itself low targets so it can celebrate when it reaches them. It puts out press releases when vaccine arrives in the country and basks in the glory of things we should just expect to happen.
“It’s time to start aiming higher. There is no cause to ‘do a little dance’ over these numbers. We were told we were at the ‘front of the queue’ but we’re at the bottom of the OECD.”