Fred99:

 

sbiddle:

 

We could have been giving all of our elderly AZ by now from the supplies but have chosen not to.

 

 

At the time the decisions were being made here, there was only very limited data from Phase III trials on the efficacy of the AZ vaccine in over 65 age group.

 

In fact it wasn't until February this year that WHO endorsed use of that vaccine in over 65 YOs.  If the UK "went the way they did" then the immediate demands of the situation they were in was entirely different to NZ's situation.

 

The Phase III trails for the Pfizer vaccine were carried out on 65-74 and 75+ age groups, showing very high efficacy.

 

The Pfizer vaccine is quantifiably better - I'm very confident NZ made exactly the right decision at the right time based on the best data available.

 

 

 

There is plenty of recent data to show the differences in real world effectiveness (and not just trial efficacy) in elderly between Pfizer and AZ is very similar. Some even shows that AZ could be a better solution for elderly.

It's more the fact that right now we're a sitting duck with no vaccines hoping and praying we don't get CT here because out vaccination levels are so low. We're probably very lucky right now that the Australian visitor had a single jab of AZ because that potentially could have been the savior that prevented CT.

We could have easily opted to give AZ to elderly and could have even made that decision in early May once we knew what our vaccine levels would be like until late July, but we opted to not progress with approval for AZ. We've been giving away our Covax supplies of AZ.