New Zealand Says COVID Vaccinations ‘Small Step in Long Journey’

New Zealand launched its Covid-19 vaccination program on Saturday but warned that the initial launch was only a small step in the long fight against the pandemic.

The Pacific nation has been widely praised for handling coronavirus and has seen only 26 deaths in a population of 5 million, reports AFP.

The vaccine drive begins just days after authorities lifted a coronavirus lockdown in Auckland which confined most of the city’s residents to their homes for three days.

“It’s the start of what we might call a new chapter but we still have a long way to go,” said Ashley Bloomfield, the country’s director-general of health.

The rollout was a "small but important step in a long journey," he added, with an initial focus on high-risk citizens and those returning from overseas, along with border and quarantine workers.

Trans-Tasman neighbor Australia will begin a similar roll-out of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines to frontline workers on Monday.

Both nations have closed borders to almost all international travelers, severely damaging the tourism industry, which is a key pillar of the economy.

Despite the vaccine program, the New Zealand government said it was unlikely that overseas tourists would be allowed to return this year.