Anyone who has contact with patients, including aged residential care workers, is this week being asked to register and book a time for the first of the two shots necessary to provide protection against the virus.
"Next week we will begin vaccinating front-line health workers at clinics in Dunedin and Invercargill, and clinics for Queenstown and Central Otago are planned for mid-April," Southern District Health Board Covid-19 vaccine rollout incident controller Hamish Brown said yesterday.
"We are working with our rural hospitals and primary care on how best we can deliver the vaccine in locations across the district."
The southern vaccine roll-out began three weeks ago when about 420 port workers in Dunedin, Invercargill and Tiwai Point received the first of their two shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
Those people were receiving their second shots this week, Mr Brown said.
At the same time the household contacts of workers, about another 500 people, were receiving their first injections.
Ultimately, about 575,000 vaccination appointments would have to be scheduled, as the SDHB planned to dispense the vaccine to everyone in Otago and Southland who was aged 16 and over.
"To deliver the large number of vaccinations that will be required each day to work through our population (hundreds a day in the short to medium term, and thousands a day in the medium to long term), permanent vaccination clinics will be essential in the short term and to supplement primary care delivery in the long term," Mr Brown said.
"Plus, there are some constraints around storage and use of the vaccine, which needs to be stored in super low-temperature freezers, and used within five days of leaving cold storage."
After health workers are vaccinated, the general populace would receive its injections, in accordance with already issued Ministry of Health priority guidelines.
Higher risk people are expected to start being vaccinated in May, with the remainder of the general population being scheduled for their vaccinations in July.
"In Southern, our plans are consistent with the Ministry of Health’s approach of starting with few sites for targeted groups, and then ramping up to a more distributed model involving primary care and other providers," Mr Brown said.
However, any confirmation of a transtasman travel bubble might mean the proposed order for vaccinations was altered.
"The expected travel bubble with Australia will have significant implications for health and border services in Queenstown," Mr Brown said.
"As well as meaning airport workers will become a priority population for vaccination, this will involve swabbing, entry/exit screening and vaccination.
"We are currently working through this with our primary care and hospital colleagues there."
