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Manurewa marae chief executive  Takutai Moana Natasha Kemp outside the new Shot Cuz vaccination bus.
Manurewa marae chief executive Takutai Moana Natasha Kemp outside the new Shot Cuz vaccination bus.

SocietySeptember 22, 2021

‘Hey cuz, come on down’: Manurewa marae’s vaccination bus is already a hit

Manurewa marae chief executive  Takutai Moana Natasha Kemp outside the new Shot Cuz vaccination bus.
Manurewa marae chief executive Takutai Moana Natasha Kemp outside the new Shot Cuz vaccination bus.

With the pressure on to increase Auckland’s vaccination rates, Justin Latif checked out a new bus service taking the jab to the people.

As a karakia was being uttered to mark the unveiling of the Shot Cuz vaccination bus, Takutai Moana Natasha Kemp says tears began welling up in her eyes. 

“This is what our community has been asking for. It’s about keeping our whānau safe and protecting our whakapapa,” says Kemp, the Manurewa Marae chief executive. 

The bus is one of 12 being deployed throughout Auckland by the Northern Regional Health Coordination Centre (NRHCC), with this one set to park up at a number of popular sites around Manurewa over the coming weeks. The converted buses are from Auckland Airport’s Park and Ride fleet, can do up to 300 shots per day and will be staffed by 12 staff, including vaccinators, observers, cold chain managers and administration staff. 

Kaumātua from Manurewa Marae blessed the Shot Cuz bus in Clendon on Tuesday morning before its staff began administering shots. (Photo: Justin Latif)

With a clear spring sun shining on, Monty Cassidy and Hunter-Breeze Maihi were the first among a sizeable group outside the Clendon Pak’n’Save waiting to get their shots on Tuesday. The pair were both receiving their first dose and despite some nerves, said they felt good about getting vaccinated. With so many locations in the Clendon area named as locations of interest, Cassidy said he felt being vaccinated would make it easier “to be out in the community again”.

Maihi admitted she had been “nervous and hesitant” when the vaccine was first mooted, but after hearing from Māori immunologists that it’s safe she felt reassured. 

“I have two young children who I really don’t want to catch the virus, so I’m getting vaccinated so we can stop its spread in the community.”

Kemp, whose marae has already vaccinated over 30,000 people since April, says they have been pushing for a means to take vaccinations out into the community.

“This isn’t about reaching a certain number, this is about reaching our Māori and Pacific community, it’s about building trusting relationships and it’s about manaakitanga.”

After some discussion, the marae decided to rename their bus, she says. Rather than Shot Bro, the name given to it by the Ministry of Health, it is now Shot Cuz.

“There was widespread approval from the community, as it’s more gender neutral and it’s how our whānau talk, like, ‘hey cuz, come on down, if you need a shot’,” she says. 

And while she’s had very little negative feedback about the vaccination, she is encouraging people to speak to one of the many clinical staff onsite should they still be concerned. “If you’re worried, come and have a conversation with us, as a lot of us have seen a lot of whānau get vaccinated now.”

NRHCC lead and Counties Manukau Health chief executive Margie Apa, left and Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson at the unveiling of the new Shot Cuz vaccination bus. (Photo: Justin Latif)

Manurewa resident and Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson was among dignitaries at the Shot Cuz unveiling. She says she was particularly pleased to see local providers being used to help with the vaccine rollout. “It’s the relationship and the trust that is going to make the difference to get these looser vaccinated neighbourhoods protected, so I’m really pleased to see the buses coming to south Auckland, particularly places like Clendon.”

NRHCC lead and Counties Manukau Health chief executive Margie Apa was also onsite for the bus blessing. She says the buses are part of a wider effort to make the vaccine more accessible, including for those with disabilities or mobility issues.

“Rather than them coming out, we’re trying to make accessible options, so we will have mobile teams who are able to go into people’s homes as well.”

She says increasing vaccination rates is particularly crucial in south Auckland because, despite Middlemore hospital being well-prepared for Covid, more cases would inevitably lead to fewer resources for non-Covid patients.

“We have done quite a lot of preparatory work to both our ICU and high dependency units, so we can take up to 60 at any one time,” she says. “But it’s hard to avoid Middlemore being the epicentre [of the outbreak] as it’s the closest ED [emergency department] for people to walk into.”

She says the hospital’s patient load is “manageable“ at level four and three because fewer people are getting unwell but once the city moves out of level three, the pressure for more services will increase. 

If we can get our whole community vaccinated, that opens up our options in terms of how we go back to providing more services to the community.”

And Apa says collaborative initiatives like this are cause for optimism that that goal is achievable. 

“As you see today we’ve got Māori providers, DHB staff and the local businesses all supporting each other for this. And the region’s hospitals have also come together much more over this year than in the past. 

”It’s really taken a whole system effort, which I call a team of teams, and I think that’s what will get us through.”

Keep going!
Toby Morris
Toby Morris

SocietySeptember 22, 2021

Siouxsie Wiles: Why we need to stay the course on elimination

Toby Morris
Toby Morris

There’s some confusion around what ‘elimination’ means in tackling an outbreak. But to abandon the approach while so many remain unvaccinated would be to put vulnerable people at unconscionable risk, writes Siouxsie Wiles. Illustrations and animations by Toby Morris.


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So here we are. Auckland has moved to alert level three. I’ll be honest, I’m nervous. I would have stayed at alert level four for a little longer. I’ve always been more conservative than the government when it comes to moving down the alert levels. But at the same time, they have more information than we do. They know more about where transmission is happening and the likelihood that moving to level three will change that. The approach has always involved seeking to use the least restrictions to get outbreaks under control as fast as possible. They don’t always get it right, but they’ve shown they’re flexible enough to move us back up the alert levels if it’s absolutely necessary. I hope it’s not. We’ll need to wait a week or so and see. 

And they’re right: level four has done its job. If it hadn’t, we’d be seeing hundreds and hundreds of cases a day. Our hospitals would probably have been overwhelmed. Now the government is banking on a combination of level three and the test-trace-isolate-vaccinate strategy keeping us on the road to elimination. Because despite what pundits and naysayers are yelling, that is still our goal. Maybe these armchair epidemiologists have forgotten what elimination means in the context of the pandemic? Here’s something Toby Morris and I prepared earlier.

In epidemiological terms, elimination means to reduce cases to zero or near zero in a particular location. For us that location is Aotearoa. We’ve managed it in Wellington. But the outbreak had got pretty big in Auckland before we even realised it was happening. Now we’re trying to snuff out those few existing transmission chains in Auckland, while hoping they don’t trigger any further transmission chains outside of the Auckland region, like we’ve seen in Upper Hauraki. That’s why the rest of the country remains at level two. That’s why everyone should be doing everything they can to reduce the chances of being a case. You know the drill. Wear masks when out and about. Keep track of your movements by using the Covid Tracer App and scanning QR codes wherever you go. Getting tested as soon as you have any symptoms that could be Covid-19. Not sure what the symptoms are? Here’s a handy guide from me and Toby. You can see translations into a range of other languages here.

If you haven’t been vaccinated yet, make time to do it this week. The vaccine is saving lives. It could save your life. Toby Morris and I have got answers to questions about its safety in young people here, in pregnancy and breastfeeding here, and we’ve explained how vaccines were tested and approved here. If you know someone who is hesitant about getting the vaccine, then please, we need you step up and have a conversation with them about that. Kate Hannah has advice for how to do that here.

There are very few people for whom the Pfizer vaccine isn’t safe. Essentially that applies to people who have had a serious allergic reaction to one of the ingredients of the vaccine, or to their first dose. I can’t tell you how grateful I feel to be able to be vaccinated when so many people around the world, living in countries with widespread community transmission, aren’t likely to have access to vaccines for another year or so. 

As I’ve said before, I’m finding this lockdown really hard. I’m dealing with the concerted efforts by some people to discredit me, and the torrents of abuse that has unleashed. To be fair, this has been happening since the start of the pandemic, but it has gotten so much worse over recent weeks. While that’s been going on, I’ve been turning up online every day to answer people’s questions about the vaccine so they can make an informed choice about whether to vaccinate or not. We need everyone to get vaccinated if we don’t want to have to need level four restrictions to keep delta at bay. 

I’m also trying to keep up with the all the studies about the impacts of Covid-19 in those countries that have chosen to “live with the virus”. The impacts are already huge and still not yet fully realised. A recent study out of the US suggests that so far the pandemic has resulted in 9.08 million years of life lost through to March 2021 in the US alone. More than four million of those years lost were by people aged 25 to 64. The greatest toll has been on Black and Hispanic communities. Are we willing to accept these people as the “dry tinder” of the virus? Are we willing to make that sacrifice? I know I’m not. 

Knowledge like that weighs on me heavily. I worry about who we would be sacrificing if we gave up on elimination right now. I’m also worried about my family and friends overseas. My mum has a form of cancer that means that while she’s fully vaccinated, she’s unlikely to have made much in the way of protective antibodies. That means she and my dad, who live in the UK, have been isolated since February last year. They are retired and privileged enough to be able to stay home and stay safe. But there are many others who are equally vulnerable and have to go to work. This is the normality that those who want us to abandon our elimination strategy are pushing for. You may see stories of people going on holiday and the world getting on with “living with the virus”. In my view this amounts this is happening at the expense of vulnerable people and communities, not to mention unvaccinated children. How can that be right? 

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. We need to ignore the screaming bloviators who are knowingly and unknowingly undermining the collective response that has served us so well so far. Sticking with elimination for now gives us more options in the long run. Yes, delta is hard. But we’ll beat it by doing what we did last time. By working together. Kia kaha.

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