WELLINGTON —New Zealand will begin to offer free COVID-19 vaccines to its entire population by the middle of next year, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Thursday.
The government said it had secured enough vaccines to inoculate all of the country’s 5 million people, with two new agreements signed with pharmaceutical companies AstraZeneca and Novavax.
The agreements secure access to 7.6 million doses from AstraZeneca, enough for 3.8 million people, and 10.72 million doses from Novavax, enough for 5.36 million people. Both vaccines require two doses to be administered.
“It will be New Zealand’s largest immunization roll-out ever,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said at a …
Keep on reading: New Zealand plans vaccine roll-out in second half of 2021