A Māori leader says a different approach is urgently needed to attract young Māori along for their Covid-19 vaccines. Data released by the Ministry of Health shows Māori are still behind in the vaccine rollout, with the disparity largest among 20 to 34 year olds. That risks undermining the government’s hope that opening the rollout to younger age groups would fix the gap in vaccination numbers.At Manurewa Marae, whānau have been coming in for injections for weeks now, and the number has been steadily increasing since lockdown. But chief executive Natasha Kemp said they were coming across a hurdle: Getting rangatahi along. “We can see it, they’re not coming, they’re not taking the uptake of being vaccinated so we’ve gotta do some more work around that,” she said.”I think it’s about finding those key rangatahi leaders as well in our communities, and bringing them together and saying, ‘we need to do something different’.”
According to data released by the Ministry of Health on Wednesday, 34 percent of people in the European or other category are now fully vaccinated. But for Māori, that was only 21 percent. The disparity was largest among Māori under 50, particularly 20 to 34 year olds, who were vaccinated in far fewer numbers than the same age groups in other ethnicities. A co-chair of the National Māori Pandemic Group Te Rōpū Whakakaupapa Urutā, Sue Crengle, said the gap was proving stubborn. “That’s kind of quite disappointing. It means that the government’s views that Māori immunisation rates would increase when young people started to be vaccinated may not be realised because we’re still not being vaccinated at the same rate as non-Māori and non-Pacific people.” Crengle has long argued there would not be a lag if equity was part of the plan from the outset.
