A mother says health authorities should be more upfront with parents, after she was told she could take her children for second doses of the COVID-19 vaccine in half the official timeframe.
Five to 11 year olds began being vaccinated in January, with an eight-week gap between the two doses unless a child has medical reasons for a quicker schedule.
But an Auckland mother-of-two said when she asked her GP about getting a second dose early - with no medical grounds - he told her she should go to a pharmacy.
She said no-one asked about her decision and they were fully vaccinated after a four-week gap.
The woman, who asked not to be named, said the government needed to be transparent that they were not enforcing the eight-week rule, and detailed the decision she came to.
"Three weeks after my children, who are in normal health with no immune conditions, had their first dose, I asked our GP about how to get a second dose 'early'. He said 'no, you don't have to wait eight weeks, you can get it, just book in with one of the pharmacies doing the vaccines'.
"The official booking system only lets you book eight weeks apart, but if you take any child to a place doing the vaccines then they will do it as long as it has been three weeks. And he was right, I booked in with the local pharmacy and the kids had it done there - no-one asked about my decision or gave me any advice that waiting was better.
"The Ministry of Health webpage still makes it sound like it is not possible to shorten the gap between vaccines for children unless they have serious medical conditions. Given the current outbreak, this will mean that by the time their child is fully protected - 10 weeks after the first vaccine has been given - they will have already caught COVID and spread it around the household."
Last week, Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield said experts had looked again at whether a shorter spacing was justified, and decided that it was not.
"Children, because of their much more attuned immune systems, have a much starker response to that first dose, and then also a bigger gap is better for long-term immunity and for reducing the likelihood of some of those rare side effects," he said.
But the mother said she was happy with her decision, particularly because masks were not always worn by her year 4 daughter's classmates.
"I'm glad that I had my kids fully vaccinated before this outbreak took off. I wish that the government was being more transparent and giving parents the full information to make an informed decision about what is best for their family as this would result in more of my children's classmates being fully vaccinated.
"Transmission at schools will climb now that children will continue to attend even when their classmates go off with COVID - the previous need for the rest of the class to go off as close contacts after one tested positive was a great 'buffer' to prevent widespread transmission across a school. It reflected the reality that children don't social distance in the same way that adults do.
"The government is not being very transparent about this issue and is not communicating clearly with parents. I have spoken to other parents at the school gate and most don't realise there is no rule for an eight-week delay. This lack of information is in effect preventing parents who may wish to get the second vaccine sooner from doing so."
Ministry of Education figures show 84 percent of schools in Auckland have had cases over the past 10 days and in the past two days there have been a total of 3286 student infections in the city.
RNZ
