How much has NZ spent on purchasing Covid vaccinations?
I’m in a bit of a dead zone waiting for OIA’s to get responses so here’s some appalling facts to pass the time.
To the end of June 2023:
$1.3 billion has been spent to buy Pfizer (the preferred vaccine), Novavax and AstraZeneca doses.
This excludes the cost to administer the doses - making it higher than the May 2021 amount of $1.4 billion that then Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins claimed would be the cost for both purchasing the doses and the vaccination program to distribute and administer them. (Administering them was about $36 a dose during standard working hours, and over $48 if a dose was done after hours or on weekends.)
$1.1 million was spent on just storing them on arrival while they waited to be distributed.
$485 million has been paid to labs to just process PCR tests for Covid. This excludes the cost to administer the tests.
And this is the latest list of all doses which had to be ‘disposed of’ as they hadn’t been used by their expiry.
And I still can’t figure out how many extra ICU beds New Zealand got ‘to the end of June 2023’.
Keep up the good work
The true cost is much more than dollars and cents
But the catastrophic overspending everywhere
Both financial and to common sense
Our communities and support networks
To our hospitals and our health
Our democracy and woke journalism
Even the food we put in our mouths
They have sold us out
To large corporates without a soul
Leaving us indentured servants
Forced to pay their toll
For medicines we didn't need
For a pandemic that was hype
For a nation said to be peaceful
They're baiting us to fight
Like our grandfather's did in Crete
And their fathers at the Somme
Cold, wet and hungry
Oh they soldiered on
For freedom many died there
For a chance of liberty
And our so called leaders just gave it away
That's the price they paid
With our money
And cunning trickery
OUCH!!!