“The Government should be congratulated for getting some Pfizer vaccine for Covid-19 confirmed for rollout from next week,” says ACT Leader David Seymour.

“This has been a triumph of constructive opposition, with ACT putting pressure on since early January for the Government to do better on the vaccine rollout in the wake of new more virulent strains changing the Covid landscape.

“If the Government was ever going to deliver something early it was this much-needed vaccine.

“It was frankly embarrassing that yesterday 75 countries had already administered 152 million doses of vaccine.

“We expect the Government will no longer claim there are benefits to waiting.

“No contrived excuses around safety or other countries’ Covid experiences stacked up anyway.

“We were only ever one outbreak away from being in the same parlous situation as many of the 75 countries that have already started vaccinating.

“And by waiting we were at risk of having herd immunity in countries we want to travel to, trade with and invest in before we started vaccinating.

“Now all eyes move to an effective rollout, and whether proper planning for distribution has been done over the summer break.

“Big promises have been made about the vaccination programme going smoothly.”

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