Vaccinations on offer over weekend

The Southern District Health Board is calling for anyone in Groups 1, 2, 3 or aged 60 and over to take advantage of Covid-19 vaccine appointments this weekend.

Yesterday, Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins announced invitations to those aged 55 and over would start from August 6, five days ahead of schedule.

“As part of our scaling up of the programme we have started offering weekend appointments at our vaccination centres in Dunedin and Invercargill,” Southern District Health Board Covid-19 vaccine rollout incident controller Hamish Brown said.

“We have availability at the Meridian Mall in Dunedin this Saturday and the Civic Theatre in Invercargill on Saturday and Sunday, and we strongly urge anyone in those priority groups to book their appointment if they haven’t already, as we open to the next cohort.”

Those aged 55 and over were also eligible for these weekend clinics.

Weekend appointments were also available at several of the 67 general practices and pharmacies offering the vaccine across the district.

In the Southern District, 80 percent of the over 65 population and 77 percent of the over 60 population had either been vaccinated or had an appointment booked.

“Thanks to the efforts of our providers, the programme has already been able to significantly scale up its capacity and our delivery across the district,” Brown said.

“We have been really pleased with the positive response and rapid uptake by the public.”

About 145,000 vaccines have been delivered across the district to date.

Over 5,000 vaccines were administered in Southern yesterday, the largest daily output for the district. 

Add a Comment

 

Advertisement