The southern vaccination rate is on a par with the percentage of eligible people nationwide who have had a second booster, despite health officials expanding eligibility for the booster in an attempt to stave off the second wave of the Omicron variant of the pandemic disease.
Over-65s have been more inclined to receive their booster - half of all eligible people have had the vaccination - but for those aged 50-65 the vaccination rate falls to 19%.
University of Otago Wellington epidemiologist Prof Michael Baker said New Zealand was still a highly vaccinated country - 90% of people have had the two dose Pfizer regime and 73% had had a first booster.
Prof Baker thought "Covid complacency" might be to blame for the lower take-up rate for a second booster, but warned New Zealand should expect to be beset by further waves of Covid-19.
"These are people who are not hesitant about vaccines ... but it sounds like a lot of people have maybe decided that the threat from Covid is declining and the need for the vaccine is decreasing.
"But there is a reasonable probability that we will have other variants coming through.
"By definition these variants only arise because they are good at evading immunity, and so they are definitely something to be worried about."
Omicron BA4 and BA5, the strains driving the most recent outbreak of cases, were starting to decline now, but only after having created the highest peak in mortality in the pandemic so far, Prof Baker said.
"It was only last month that we hit peak mortality and Covid was responsible for about 15% of deaths in New Zealand, rivalling ischemic heart disease, so it’s amazing how fast the picture can change and something moves away from being a public concern."
In the past seven days, 898 cases of Covid-19 have been detected at the border, and Prof Baker said that rate of infectious new arrivals showed that there was still an ongoing global pandemic.
"We are now connected to the world’s diversity of Covid-19 diseases."
There were 153 new community cases of Covid-19 reported in Otago and Southland yesterday.
Nationally, the Ministry of Health reported 2464 new cases.
The seven-day rolling average of community cases in New Zealand was 2251, more than 1200 fewer than the same time a week ago.
The ministry reported a further 11 deaths, one of which was in southern.
