Only half of the vaccines allocated for Gisborne border workers and their family members were actually given to them.
Tairāwhiti DHB says it may have overestimated the number of border workers in the region when it ordered the Pfizer vaccine. File photo Photo: AFP
And the district health board there does not know how many of the highest risk workers still need a jab.
Tairāwhiti DHB said 300 doses were assigned for the first round of vaccinations for border workers and their families or households in the tier one roll out.
But only 86 border workers and 51 family members had one, according to Ministry of Health figures.
DHB chief executive Jim Green said the allocation was based on an estimate of frontline workers that may have been larger than the true workforce.
The DHB wanted to cast the net widely to include more than just the workers who dealt directly with overseas ships but also the colleagues they then interacted with, he said.
There would be border workers who had not yet had a vaccine but he did not know exactly how many.
The situation echoed the national picture, with politicians and government officials admitting they don't know the exact number of border workers yet to be vaccinated.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was able to give exact figures for MIQ workers yesterday, saying 3472 out of 4010 had been vaccinated.
Gisborne and the wider Tairāwhiti area had a small border workforce, based at Eastland Port, which serviced a few overseas ships a week.
Eastland Port said there were about 60 staff plus about 170 contractors, mostly stevedores, working on the port.
Eastland Port Photo: RNZ / Cole Eastham-Farrelly
It estimated about 50 were border facing, meaning they could have direct contact with overseas crews.
Health workers and other government staff also had direct contact, and truck drivers transported logs to the port.
Despite not knowing who was left to vaccinate, Green insisted there had been a good initial uptake.
The leftover vaccines from the 300 doses set aside for border workers and their families were given to health workers so they did not go to waste.
Vaccinations began yesterday for all frontline health staff in the region, and border workers and their families will still be able to be vaccinated in that group, Green said.
It was not prioritising certain health roles because it had enough vaccine to get everyone who needed it, he said.
After the health roll out, work would begin to reach the small, remote communities around the east coast and the district's rural west.
That included taking mobile clinics around coastal towns and other rural areas in a similar way to Covid testing during last year's national outbreak.
They would try to vaccinate whole towns in a day or two, Green said.