We checked with local hospital systems to find out how many employees are complying with vaccine mandates at their hospitals.
MEMPHIS, Tenn. So if you go to the hospital, will the worker helping you be vaccinated for COVID-19? A majority of Mid-South hospital systems say yes.
We checked with Memphis-area hospitals to find out how many employees are complying with vaccine mandates at their workplace.
Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare
Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare said it has just under 13,000 employees total. They tell us as of Tuesday, 97% of the workforce has been vaccinated. (An exact number was not released). The hospital said staff who dont comply with its vaccine mandate and do not have an exemption face disciplinary action up to termination, if they fail to get vaccinated.
We are incredibly proud of the Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare Associates and providers who fulfilled their duty to deliver the safest possible care for the patients we are privileged to serve. Safety has been and will always be our first priority, said Methodist officials in a statement. We had hoped everyone would answer the call to get the vaccine. However, we respect their right to make a different decision. Like most hospital systems across the country, staffing shortages were a challenge in specific areas at Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare before the pandemic. This historic pandemic exacerbated those challenges for us and as well as other industries. We are proud that 97% of our staff members are fully vaccinated. Several health systems around the country and in TN now require the COVID-19 vaccine for their healthcare workers. It is our sacred duty to protect our patients, and receiving the vaccine is an important step in honoring that duty.
Regional One Health
Regional One Health said as of its October 31, 2021 deadline, 98.99% of its employees are complaint with the hospitals vaccination policy. Officials said 28 employees were non-compliant and placed on leave and that number includes 20 clinical and eight non-clinical workers. We have experienced no staffing issues associated with the COVID vaccination policy, said Regional One officials.
Baptist Memorial Healthcare
We have reached out to Baptist Memorial Healthcare and are awaiting a response.
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital said they will not release exact numbers, but said the overwhelming majority of our employees are fully vaccinated.
This is the full statement: St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital and ALSAC have a shared, sole mission: To advance treatment for children with catastrophic diseases. Care for our patients many of whom have compromised immune systems their families and each other is at the center of every decision we make.
On July 14, we announced all employees must be vaccinated against COVID-19 by Thursday, September 9, 2021. We join other hospitals and institutions nationwide that are requiring vaccination to effectively fight COVID-19. ALSAC and St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital share a campus and are jointly implementing this policy for the safety and well-being of our patient families and staff.
The overwhelming majority of our employees are fully vaccinated and there will be no impact to the care we provide our patients and families, our life-saving research or our fundraising efforts.
St. Jude does not disclose information about employee terminations.
St. Francis Hospital
St. Francis Hospital has not reported a vaccine mandate for its employees.
(JTA) When Rabbi Lisa Gelber heard that the Food and Drug Administration had approved the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine for children ages 5-11, she couldnt wait for the moment that her daughter would get the shot.
But she also knew her daughter was scared of needles. So she sat down with her daughter, 11-year-old Zahara, and together they composed a kavanah, Hebrew for intention, to reflect the gravity and gratitude with which they viewed this milestone and process the feelings her daughter had about the shot.
Holy One of life and love, wrap me in a warm embrace as I prepare to receive my COVID-19 vaccine, the prayer begins. I give thanks to the doctors and scientists who are creators like you, for the wise people who approved the vaccine, and for everyone who made sure this was available to kids.
Gelber, the spiritual leader of Congregation Habonim in New York City, shared the full prayer on Facebook, where her friends and colleagues have been circulating it in anticipation of the vaccines likely availability for children as soon as the end of this week.
This feels like a miraculous moment in time. What a gift that this next expansive cohort will have access to a vaccine, Gelber told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
When COVID-19 vaccinations in the United States began in December 2020, there was much discussion of which blessing or Jewish prayer to recite when receiving the shot. Several new prayers were even written specifically for that occasion, with many offering thanks to the scientists who created the vaccines.
Now, children ages 5-11 are set to become eligible to receive the COVID vaccine in the United States in the next few weeks, potentially bringing to an end a period when parents have worried about the risks of activities as basic as sending a child to school or going to the playground. And the moment is being marked by a new set of Jewish prayers, with at least one, as in the case of Gelber and her daughter, even written by a child.
Gelber said her daughter wanted to thank the people who created the vaccine while noting her fear of needles. Most moving for me was her gratitude for the opportunity to say a blessing which would make me stronger and take her mind off of pain, she said.
Rabbi Karen Reiss Medwed, an assistant dean at the Graduate School of Education at Northeastern University, was first inspired to write a kavanah for receiving a COVID-19 vaccine several months ago when a nurse in her community spoke at their synagogue about the experience of being vaccinated. More recently, Medwed was inspired by her rabbis sermon to write a new kavanah specifically for parents to recite before their children receive the vaccine.
He spoke not only as a rabbi, but as a father, expressing the long awaited relief, as well as the deep religious sense of obligation this next phase of vaccination would bring, Medwed told JTA in an email, referring to Rabbi Joel Levenson of the Midway Jewish Center in Syosset, New York. There was no question I had to compose something to recite, just as parents recite a short kavannah upon having the zchut [merit] to arrive with their child to their bnai mitzvah.
Medweds prayer expresses gratitude to God and to those who developed the vaccines and, echoing the shehecheyanu prayer recited over a new experience, expresses the relief many parents feel at the opportunity to finally vaccinate their children.
With this vaccination I let out the long held pause and breath I have been anxiously keeping inside for these long months, and passionately affirm, Blessed are you, Adonai, Ruler of this Universe, who has granted us life, sustained us, and brought us to this moment, and let us all say, Amen, the prayer reads.
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Instruction
In the next few days the White House is expected to issue a rule that could change the path of the pandemic and change the future of the workforce.
The Biden administration is proposing vaccine mandates for companies with 100 or more employees. That's about two-thirds of the national private-sector workforce.
The rules would require employers to enforce a mandatory vaccination policy or create a plan for regular Covid-19 testing.
So what would that mean for Connecticut? According to the most recent data from 2018, there were 4,158 companies in the state with 100 or more employees. All together those firms employ more than one million people. It's worth noting that a lot of those are health care facilities or universities which already have vaccine requirements in place.
The head of the Connecticut Business and Industry Association says it's smaller companies that are really waiting for the federal rules to come down.
"They're quite honestly concerned, they've already got, based on some surveys that we've done of the membership community, 70 to 80% of their employees vaccinated so they can potentially lose 20 or 30% of their workforce when they're already dealing with labor shortages. That in addition to them being put in the middle on how to enforce the mandate whenever the ruling comes out. Do they have to get rid of their employees otherwise they get fine? How's the whole disciplinary process work has them quite honestly, very concerned," CBIA President Chris DiPentima said.
The state estimates that there are 70,000 to 80,000 job openings right now. Companies are worried that requiring vaccines could cause them to lose even more employees.
"It could be a huge strain on something that's already the number one issue, at least here in Connecticut with we're not as far along in our job recovery as some other states in the Northeast, and certainly, as well as the country has been doing. We're still kind of lagging in our unemployment percentage. We still haven't recovered 90,000 of the jobs that we lost during Covid. We got about 70,000, 80,000 job openings right now. We still have 50,000 people on unemployment. So we haven't seen the job growth that we were hoping to see being a leader and the country and addressing the pandemic and so you add the vaccine mandate on top of already our top issues it's like really rubbing salt into the wounds and that's a major concern of the business community," DiPentima explained.
Dan Schwartz, an attorney at Shipman & Goodwin and also the publisher of the Connecticut Employment Law Blog, answered some of the legal questions that are coming out of this mandate.
Schwartz explained that if an employee tries to take legal action, it would be the federal government, not the employers, answering a lawsuit.
"I would expect if the employers are just following the rules that have been articulated by the Department of Labor, I think an employee is gonna have a tough time establishing any type of violation by the employer. But it's going to be important for the employers to make sure they understand what's in the rule, what testing is going to be allowed, and really work with employees to make sure that you're in compliance."
On the flip side, if an employer chooses not to enforce the mandate, they are opening themselves up to a potential claim by an employee.
"Every employer has an obligation to provide a safe workplace. Even if an employer disagrees with the rule. It's important for the employer to comply and for the employees to speak up if they don't think that their employer is abiding by the rule," Schwartz said.
He pointed out that while there may be challenges, the vast majority of employees have been complying with vaccine mandates.
"The vast majority of employers have been complying. And so sometimes you should ignore some of the headlines or some of the outliers and really look to the mainstream and overall these mandates been widely accepted by employees women have been implemented."
COLUMBUS, Ohio (COLUMBUS BUSINESS FIRST)Ohio State University has seen a sharp increase in its COVID-19 vaccination rate in the two-plus months that have passed since the university announced it would require students, faculty, and staff to be vaccinated against the virus.
On Aug. 24, when the requirement was announced, the university-wide vaccination rate was 73%.
As of Oct. 28, 91% of students, faculty, and staff are partially or fully vaccinated against COVID-19, representing approximately 95,000 people, according to spokesman Ben Johnson.
The communitys response to Ohio States vaccine requirement has been overwhelmingly positive, Johnson told us. We continue to encourage all members of the Ohio State community to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
The deadline for OSU students, faculty, and staff to get their first dose of the vaccine was Oct. 15. For those getting a Pfizer or Moderna shot, the second dose is due by Nov. 15.
However, the university has also approved thousands of exemptions to its vaccine mandate.
OSU announced there would be a limited set of exemptions allowed, due to medical, personal or religious reasons.
Roughly 5,750 people across OSU have received vaccine exemptions from the mandate. There have been roughly 6,000 exemption requests.
Johnson said, about 240 requests have been denied largely because of missing documentation or incomplete forms.
Those individuals have been notified that they can resubmit their requests with proper documentation, Johnson.
For those who choose not to get a vaccine or go through the exemption process, OSU has alerted individuals that they may be subject to disciplinary action.
For students, that includes being ineligible to participate in on-campus experiences including in-person classes.
Faculty and staff will be reminded of compliance requirements. Consequences could include the removal of electronic resources, including computer or email access, or further progressive discipline, according to OSUs website.
For more business headlines, go to ColumbusBusinessFirst.com.
Members of the fire and police departments and other city workers had until 5 p.m. Friday to show proof they have received at least one vaccine dose or request an exemption; otherwise, they would be placed on unpaid leave. The same mandate was already in effect for city health care and education workers.
About 92% of the city's employees have received at least one dose, including about 2,000 in the past 24 hours, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Tuesday morning.
The number of city employees on leave appears to be less than 3% of the municipal workforce. About 12,000 other employees, meanwhile, have applied for a religious or medical exemption, and can continue to work at least until their case is decided, de Blasio has said.
As for city police, about 85% of the department has had at least one shot as of Monday night, NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea told NY1 on Tuesday morning. That is up from 70% when the citywide vaccine mandate was announced October 20, de Blasio said.
When the number of employees who have requested exemptions is factored in, the percentage of the department eligible to continue working is about 96% or 97%, Shea told NY1.
While the number of uniformed officers on unpaid leave rose from 34 on Monday to 89 on Tuesday, this will not have an impact on public safety, Shea said.
Those numbers are expected to fluctuate, because some people waited until the last minute to get vaccinated, and it takes time to update records, Shea told NY1.
Mayor vows consequences for firefighters if they skipped work to protest vaccine mandate
About 2,300 city firefighters have called in sick since the vaccine mandate went into effect, fire Commissioner Daniel A. Nigro said at a news conference Monday.
Nigro said he believed many people calling in sick were protesting the vaccine mandate.
"If you're sick, you're sick, it's a dangerous job. I get it. If you're not sick, I want to see you back at work," Nigro said.
Normally, 800-1,000 fire department employees call in sick on any given day, FDNY spokesperson Jim Long told CNN.
FDNY union leaders oppose the mandate but also have suggested firefighters could be taking sick leave due to reactions to receiving the vaccine over the weekend.
"As (the city is) touting that our vaccination rates have increased, also those (medical) leave days increase ... as a result," FDNY-Fire Officers Association President Jim McCarthy told CNN on Tuesday.
McCarthy said an increase in fires at this time of year also can result in an increase in injuries and sick leave.
Edward Kelly, general president of the International Association of Firefighters, said he rejected the idea that firefighters are faking illness to protest the vaccine mandate.
"This assertion that 2,000 New York City firefighters are somehow skirting the system is wrong. It's flat out wrong and it's an insult," Kelly said at a news conference Tuesday.
De Blasio on Tuesday said the rise in sick calls "seems awfully convenient."
"You see so many more people calling in sick than normal," he told CNN's "New Day."
Any firefighters feigning illness to protest the vaccine mandate are "doing an immense disservice" to the city, de Blasio said a day earlier.
"The folks who are out sick and really aren't sick -- the folks who are faking it -- are doing an immense disservice to the people of this city and to their fellow members of service," de Blasio said during an interview on Spectrum NY1, adding, "We will make sure there are consequences for that."
The mayor said the city was looking into whether the firefighters' unions had coordinated any "sick-out."
"If the union coordinates -- in any way -- a job action, that is a violation of the Taylor Law," de Blasio said, referencing a New York state law that prohibits public employees from striking.
The mayor said the city was willing to "go to court immediately" over any alleged Taylor Law violation.
Despite the large number of firefighters calling in sick, de Blasio said New Yorkers remained safe.
"There's a lot of members of the fire department -- there's a lot of redundancy," he said, adding that scheduled training and maintenance was canceled Monday in order to maximize the number of on-duty firefighters.
Nigro, the FDNY commissioner, said at a news conference Monday that 18 fire units were out of service out of 350, though no firehouses had closed.
"If you're sick, you're sick, it's a dangerous job. I get it. If you're not sick, I want to see you back at work," Nigro said.
Union is 'not anti-vaccine,' leader says
According to city figures Monday morning, 77% of FDNY firefighters had received a vaccine, up from 58% when the vaccine mandate was announced on October 20. Emergency medical services employees within the FDNY have an 88% vaccination rate, up from 61%.
FDNY-Firefighters Association President Andrew Ansbro said Monday morning that he didn't know how many firefighters would not be permitted to work due to still being unvaccinated, stating the FDNY does not share those numbers with them.
"I don't have access to numbers of who's gone sick, but I do know that hundreds of firefighters have received their Covid vaccination in the last several days. No one should be expected to work less than 100%. Everyone knows the vaccine causes mild flu-like symptoms regularly, so these members are not coming to work feeling those symptoms," Ansbro said.
He said the vaccine mandate is "causing an exodus" of firefighters from the department and the remaining firefighters are "going to have to work to the breaking point" to make up for the staffing shortages. Ansbro maintained the union is "not anti-vaccine, we are anti-mandate."
FDNY-Fire Officers Association President Jim McCarthy said Monday morning "all we are asking for is extra time" regarding the city mandate, so their members can have more time to make decisions on whether to get the vaccine, to file any religious or medical exemptions, or potentially decide to retire.
McCarthy said the department's previous policy of testing unvaccinated FDNY members for Covid-19 was working.
CNN's Taylor Romine, Evan Simko-Bednarski, Laura Ly, Christina Maxouris and Ralph Ellis contributed to this report.
People walk past restaurants and bars in Amsterdam, Netherlands October 14 2020. REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw
AMSTERDAM, Nov 1 (Reuters) - The Netherlands will impose new coronavirus restrictions this week in a bid to curb a recent surge in infections, health minister Hugo de Jonge said on Monday.
"We can't escape having to take new measures", De Jonge said. "The number of COVID-19 patients in hospitals is rising fast."
De Jonge did not give details of the new measures, which he said would be decided on Tuesday. Broadcaster NOS said the government was likely to require face masks in many public places and broaden the use of a "corona pass" showing proof of a COVID-19 vaccination or recent negative coronavirus test.
Coronavirus infections in the Netherlands have been rising for a month, and reached their highest level since July in the past week. Cases on Monday were 45% higher than a week ago at 7,700. More than 1,200 COVID-19 patients were in hospital, the most in five months.
Many hospitals are cutting back on regular care again to make room for urgent COVID-19 cases.
Most coronavirus restrictions in the Netherlands were dropped on Sept. 25, as the "corona pass" was introduced as a requirement for visitors to bars, restaurants, clubs or cultural events. read more
Most coronavirus patients in hospital have not been vaccinated, Dutch health authorities said last week. According to government data, around 84% of the Dutch adult population has been fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
Reporting by Bart MeijerEditing by Peter Graff
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
On October 21, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gave most of the US population permission to get a Covid vaccine boostera shot in such high demand that 10 million people somehow obtained it in advance of that approval in an effort to feel a little safer. Two days after that, the government of the United Kingdom made things feel a little less safe: It announced the emergence of Delta-plus, a new variant that already accounts for 6 percent of cases in that country, and is even more infectious than the highly transmissible Delta.
Those back-to-back events captured the nauseating pandemic roller coaster: Things are getting better. No, theyre not. Yes, they are. No, theyre definitely not. The endless repetition is exhausting. It has led a loose coalition of scientists to ask: What if we could just make the roller coaster stop?
In a fistful of papers and preprints published in the past six months, these research teams propose a universal coronavirus vaccine that could protect against this entire viral family. That means the current SARS-CoV-2 version, any variants that might escape the protection of existing vaccines, and any future coronavirus strains that might emerge to cause new pandemics.
It is a complex project, and no group is close to reaching the goal. Universal vaccines against other recurrent, genetically variable diseasessee, especially, influenzahave been pursued unsuccessfully for years. But researchers think one for coronaviruses might be more achievable, both because this virus is less genetically complex than the one that causes the flu, and also because the threat of another coronavirus pandemic feels uncomfortably real.
After all, SARS-CoV-2 is the third coronavirus to become a major cause of human disease within two decades, after SARS in 2003 and MERS in 2012. Historic epidemiology suggests there were waves of coronavirus infections in the 20th century, the 19th century, and possibly across millennia. And its possible that thousands of not yet identified coronaviruses lurk in bats, wildlife, and domesticated animals, poised for the opportunity to leap between species and trigger havoc.
This isnt the first coronavirus pandemic weve experienced, and its not going to be the last, since in less than 20 years we have encountered three coronaviruses that have pandemic potential, says Pablo Penaloza-MacMaster, a viral immunologist and assistant professor at Northwestern University, and senior author on several papers outlining approaches to a universal vaccine. We want to be ready for the next pandemic, and the way to do that is to prepare.
These research teams arent the only ones to feel some urgency working on this. In March, the nonprofit Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, a public-private partnership that funnels government and philanthropic money to worthy projects, announced it would commitup to $200 millionto support universal coronavirus vaccine research.
But heres the challenge: To make a vaccine that protects against multiple types, strains, or variants of a virus, researchers have to find some feature that they all have in common and that our immune system reacts to. Then they have to incorporate that feature into the vaccine. With the flu, for instance, each new strain arrives bearing tiny changes in a feature called hemagglutinin, a hammer-shaped protein on the viruss surface that binds to receptors on lung cells. Because every hemagglutinin is differentresearchers actually subdivide flu viruses based on how divergent these proteins arethe search for a universal flu vaccine has focused on trying to redirect the immune systems attention from the variable head of the protein to the handle-like, less variable stem.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. New York City-run vaccination sites will be ready to administer coronavirus (COVID-19) immunizations to children ages 5 to 11 in 24 hours after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) gives the green light, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Tuesday.
De Blasio said the city has received some of the 231,000 Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines that will be used to inoculate school-aged children, adding that the remainder of the shipment is en route.
Last week, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) amended its emergency use authorization of the Pfizer vaccine to include 5- to 11-year-olds. An emergency use authorization is not approval of a vaccine. The CDCs Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices must now formally vote to recommend the vaccine for that age group.
The second we have the [information] we will put it out, but were excited to be reaching the youngest New Yorkers, de Blasio said Tuesday.
The mayor added that two days after the CDC approval is given, vaccinations will be rolled out at independent pharmacies, non-city vaccination sites and local pediatrician offices.
When asked if parents should wait to take a child to a pediatrician or go to to a city-run site, the mayor said it depends on the child.
Some kids will be more sensitive than others, he said. But I would argue to get to the first available site, but if a parent wants to work with their own pediatrician then they should start reaching out and working on that now.
Mitchel Katz, president and CEO of NYC Health+Hospitals, said that those sites will have goodie bags to help younger children get excited for vaccinations.
Sometimes I think its more traumatic for us than it is for our kids, Katz quipped. Going to sites that are familiar to your child is a good step. After a few tears, there will be many more smiles.
Torian Easterling, first deputy commissioner and chief equity officer of the city Department of Health (DOH), said that his agency is continuing to work with local partners to provide resources and to ensure a smooth rollout across its infrastructure.
We have prepared some doses, but I think its important to remember how robust our infrastructure is. We are talking to pediatricians and independent pharmacies Its going to be important to continue to communicate and provide information. Any parent looking for info can call 311 or go on the vaccine-finder website, Easterling said.
He added that equity is a continued focus, and the city will be working with federally qualified health-care centers usually located in low-income neighborhoods to provide ultra-cold storage for the vaccines.
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Confirmed cases of COVID-19 have passed 246.7 million globally, according to Johns Hopkins University. The number of confirmed deaths has now passed 5 million. More than 7.04 billion vaccination doses have been administered globally, according to Our World in Data.
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has declared the country reopened and ready for a new way of life, having surpassed its COVID-19 vaccination target.
South Korea has also eased a number of COVID-19 restrictions, and introduced vaccine passports, as the country moves towards 'living with COVID-19'.
Mexico received nearly 6 million doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine on Saturday, its health ministry said. It follows the arrival of nearly 6.5 million Sputnik V vaccine doses last Tuesday.
Singapore could see as many as 2,000 COVID-19 deaths annually, Janil Puthucheary, a senior minister of state said in parliament on Monday.
The United Arab Emirates has approved for emergency use the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for children aged 5-11.
New COVID-19 cases in Britain from 25 to 31 October have fallen 13.5% compared with the previous 7 days.
New COVID-19 cases topped 7,000 in France on Saturday for the first time since 21 September, hitting 7,360.
Daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases per million people in selected countries.
Image: Our World in Data
The COVID Response Alliance for Social Entrepreneurship is a coalition of 85 global leaders, hosted by the World Economic Forum. Its mission: Join hands in support of social entrepreneurs everywhere as vital first responders to the pandemic and as pioneers of a green, inclusive economic reality.
Its COVID Social Enterprise Action Agenda, outlines 25 concrete recommendations for key stakeholder groups, including funders and philanthropists, investors, government institutions, support organizations, and corporations. In January of 2021, its members launched its 2021 Roadmap through which its members will roll out an ambitious set of 21 action projects in 10 areas of work. Including corporate access and policy change in support of a social economy.
For more information see the Alliance website or its impact story here.
Thailand and Australia have both significantly eased international border restrictions introduced in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Hundreds of vaccinated foreign tourists arrived in the Thai capital for quarantine-free travel after the southeast Asian nation gave the green light for such visitors from more than 60 countries, including China and the United States.
Hundreds of citizens arrived in Australia - the first to arrive without a permit or the need to quarantine since April 2020. While travel is limited at first to just a few states and to Australian citizens, permanent residents and their immediate families and New Zealand nationals, it heralds a plan to re-open to international tourists and workers.
Australia's announcement of quarantine-free travel for Singapore citizens from 21 November was a step forward to 'a new normal', said Philip Goh, the Asia-Pacific vice president of airline trade body IATA.
"We are excited by this positive development and we look forward to further easing of border restrictions by Australia and other countries in the region," Goh said.
Authorities have extended COVID-19 restrictions for another week in New Zealand's largest city, Auckland. However, some will be eased after that, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said today.
A 10 November re-opening date for retail stores and institutions such as libraries and museums has been agreed, Ardern told a news conference.
"Because of the high vaccination rates in Auckland we can move with greater confidence," Ardern said. "These decisions are carefully balanced and allow us to release some of the pressure and fatigue that we know exists in Auckland."
New Zealand has been unable to quash the current outbreak, forcing it to adopt a strategy of living with the virus instead of the earlier aim of elimination.
"Previously we worked hard to eliminate every case. While Delta has forced us to change our approach, vaccines ensure we have the same goal," Ardern said.
More than 75% of New Zealand, or about 3.1 million people, have now been fully vaccinated, while 88% have got one dose.
Written by
Joe Myers, Writer, Formative Content
The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.
