A Kaitāia GP is calling for greater Covid-19 vaccine uptake in Māori children as Omicron continues to spread across the country.
Around 31.4 per cent of children in Northland aged between the ages of five and 11 have been at least partially vaccinated since the rollout for the age bracket began on January 17.
However, when solely looking at the vaccination rate for Māori children, the uptake drops to just 21.9 per cent - the lowest vaccine uptake for children in the country.
Dr Cath Rollo told 1News many whānau are living in multi-generational households so "it’s about keeping not just our tamariki safe ... but it’s about keeping other generations safe as well".
“Thirty-one per cent is much better than zero per cent, but I think we can do better and I think too, you know, sometimes, it is about remembering that social responsibility,” she said.
Rollo said while we have been “extremely lucky in Aotearoa”, we have also been “a little bit naïve as well” as the high vaccine uptake across the country has helped blunt the impact of Covid-19 seen overseas.
“There is nothing wrong with learning and seeing what’s happened overseas and keeping ourselves safe from that. We don’t have the morbidity and death rates that you see internationally and we’ve done a damn fine job.
"I’ll take my pōtae off to my colleagues and nurses and all the vaccinators out there that [our vaccine uptake], as a country, is in the 90s, but now we have to look to our tamariki and keep them safe.”
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She said while she is seeing more people enquiring about getting their children vaccinated due to the spread of Omicron, it doesn't necessarily translate into greater uptake.
“I’ve had consults that have started with whānau coming in, ‘I don’t want to talk about vaccines, don’t talk about it’ and so you don’t but now whānau are actually asking questions. Does that, then, translate to them becoming vaccinated? To tell you the truth, I’m not sure.”
In spite of the challenges, Rollo said having the korero with their GP in itself “is great because it has been quite a difficult topic to navigate at times”.
“You’ve got a completely different relationship with whānau than, say, your colleagues in hospital who you might see every now and again.
“You’re seeing whānau over years and you’re trying to maintain a relationship, be respectful towards each other - which is sometimes very difficult - and some of my patients are whānau so it is very difficult so you’re not able, sometimes, to even start a conversation.”
While Covid-19 is running rife in the community, she said some are refusing to get tested as they cannot afford to isolate.
“That really is more of an indication of poverty than not necessarily caring for their community. They still have a responsibility to their immediate whānau, paying bills and putting kai on the table … They’ve just got to live.”
Rollo said misinformation is “undeniably” causing divisions as people look to other avenues for information in response to their fears and anxieties around Covid-19.
“It’s dividing friends from each other; it’s dividing whānau; it’s dividing communities … It is a consequence of the division between that’s already existing within communities, how we have some whānau who are marginalised and don’t feel supported but it is also a lot of people, it’s social media.”
READ MORE: Calls for action as Covid vaccination misinformation targets pregnant women
She noted while some people are sharing misinformation for malicious reasons, others are doing so “with an open heart”.
“They’re not wanting to do this on purpose, there’s no agenda - this is ‘this is what I found out’. It is, most likely, not correct - that’s what misinformation is, but they’re not doing it with any nastiness in their heart, and then you’ve got others who’ve got, for whatever reason, their own agenda and it impacts the whole community.”
She said while there is a “loss of control” when a pandemic takes hold, people should work towards a middle ground as they turn their focus to fighting the real enemy - the virus.
“I think it’s about sort of focusing on the things that you as a whānau and as individuals agree on and have that respect to agree to disagree at times because we’re not always going to have a consensus on it but I do think we lose sight of the fact that the enemy here is the virus, and anything or any information that doesn’t keep us safe is also an enemy."
Rollo said she would like to see “a much better equity lens” if we were to repeat the Government’s response to the pandemic.
“We could have done this so much better. A one-size-fits-all is not the way to go so we could have done better and hopefully we won’t have to ever again but if we do, then we need to learn from this.”
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