The 500,000th dose of the Pfizer vaccine to be administered in the Southern district was given to an Oamaru man early this week.
By Monday, 91.4% of the eligible population in the Southern district had received at least one dose, and 81% were fully vaccinated.
Dunedin is now the fourth-most vaccinated area in New Zealand, behind Queenstown Lakes (first), Wellington and Selwyn.
Of the eligible Dunedin population 94.4% (104,271) had received one dose, 85.8% (94,822) had received two doses and 5.6% remained unvaccinated (6224).
Dunedin is 4624 second doses from reaching the 90% fully vaccinated target.
Southern DHB covid vaccine rollout programme lead Karl Metzler said while the numbers were positive, more still needed to be done to truly protect the community against the virus, ‘‘which is on its way’’.
‘‘There are still groups in our community who are unprotected from the virus, and who are at greater risk of becoming seriously ill,’’ Mr Metzler said.
‘‘We still have a lot of mahi to do.
‘‘We are not protected until we are all protected.’’
He stressed those who had doubts or questions about the vaccine should talk to a trusted health provider at a vaccination clinic or over the phone on 0800282-926 (8am to 8pm, seven days).
‘‘It’s OK to have questions about the vaccine, and there is a lot of extremely good information now available that can put people’s minds at rest.’’
