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National | Novel Coronavirus / COVID-19

Minister confirms vaccine misinformation high in Northland

Associate Health Minister and Tāmaki Makaurau MP Peeni Henare agrees with the Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins who earlier this week claimed there was more misinformation in the Far North, “by far the highest concentration of misinformation in the country.”

Henare told Te Ao Mārama, “Yes I do mostly agree with that statement because in the past 10 months as I’ve been campaigning for vaccinations I’ve come across those comments myself from my own people in the North. It’s come from Facebook and spread throughout the north, and the wider country.”

The minister has spent much of the lockdown travelling around the regions where there are higher Māori demographics to share information on Covid-19 and address doubts that have troubled many of the rural communities since the beginning of the Delta outbreak.

He said today the government is preparing to send community and iwi leaders of the North out to the rural areas and address the spread of misinformation.

“It’s not like it’s (the Northland) is too much different from other regions but it’s fair to say misinformation is alive and well among those in the North.”

Hailing from Ngāti Hine and Ngāpuhi, Henare has encountered both criticism and support from his own tribes in the north as he’s campaigned for vaccination.

“I’ve also seen it on the west coast of the South Island but it’s not like Northland, which is worse but, yes, it (misinformation) has spread well and truly up there,” he says.