As criticism of the Government's vaccine rollout continues, health officials are hoping a mass jabbing event in Auckland this weekend will be a shot in the arm for the country's efforts to protect Kiwis from COVID-19.
More than 16,000 jabs will be given at the Vodafone Events Centre, with people being taken to the event by bus from the Manukau Institute of Technology's (MIT) campus in Manukau.
Mass vaccination lead Alex Pimm says the focus of the event - which starts on Friday and runs over three days - is to get people vaccinated as quickly as possible.
"One of the things that's different about this event compared to some of the community vaccination centres that people might have seen is it's all about fast pace and it's about moving people through really, really quickly," Pimm told The AM Show on Friday.
"Each vaccinator is working to vaccinate a person every 90 seconds, which means that the whole experience, including the observation time following the vaccination and the shuttle buses to and back from MIT campus should take no more than an hour.
"It's a really quick experience. It's a short time out of people's day and hopefully one that they'll appreciate."
He said the event is currently fully booked and only people with reservations are able to attend.
"We've got just over 16,500 people booked in over the next three days. We've got plenty of vaccines and needles and everything else on site to ensure that we can vaccinate everybody that arrives ."
The event is being coordinated by Auckland's three district health boards and supported by the Ministry of Health.
It comes as the Government faces increasing criticism over its vaccine rollout. Earlier this week, National leader Judith Collins called the rollout a "shambles" and said the Government has "no idea" how to get jabs in Kiwis' arms.
So far a total of 1,759,154 vaccine doses have been administered in New Zealand. That includes 1,059,685 first doses and 699,469 second doses.
In August, New Zealand is set to receive an extra 1.5 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine, the biggest monthly delivery to date.
