Hundreds of Dunedin residents queued up to get vaccinated from the safety of their vehicles yesterday.
The Ngai Tahu-owned Te Kaika health centre held a drive-through Covid-19 vaccination clinic at the Edgar Centre for people aged 12 and over.
Te Kaika chief executive officer Albie Laurence said he thought the first day of the clinic would be ‘‘slow’’ with only about 400 vaccinations, but with the high demand it would have probably administered about 700 by the end of the day.
The clinic did experience a few ‘‘teething issues’’ with a new computer system, which halted progress, however the staff did not take long to recover and kept vaccinations flowing on a paper-based system.
He encouraged people to pack everyone in their bubbles who was old enough into the car to get vaccinated together.
‘‘The best way to protect against the Delta variant is vaccination.’’
Anyone with questions should go to their general practitioner or a trusted source, such as the Ministry of Health.
‘‘There is a bit of misinformation out on social media.’’
Te Kaika was also doing a mass Covid testing drive-through at its practice in Caversham, where about 300 people a day were being tested, he said.
Joel Kenton was one of the many to receive a vaccine yesterday,
He said it felt great to finally be vaccinated and hoped more people would take advantage of the opportunity.
‘‘As soon as I heard I was down here.’’
It was important the vaccination was open to all age groups,
Lindsay Scott said he waited only about 15 minutes for his jab.
The centre was well set up and staff kept traffic flowing and informed patients of the vaccination process.
Mr Scott said he was a bit hesitant to get the vaccine, but if New Zealanders did not want to end up with an outbreak on the scale of other countries it was important to get vaccinated.
The drive-in vaccination centre would continue every day from 9am throughout Levels 4 and 3.
The Southern DHB did not provide further details about how many vaccinations were administered, however more than 2000 doses were delivered across the region on Thursday.
A pop-up testing centre opened at the University of Otago St David Lecture Theatre as well yesterday.
Otago student Adel Kanapiyanova said she was grateful for the testing centre, which was accessible for students. She had recently arrived back in Dunedin after visiting Auckland and was concerned she could be spreading the virus.
She hoped more resources aimed at students would be available.
