The Southern district is calling for anyone in Groups 1, 2, 3 or aged 60 and over to take advantage of vaccine
appointments this weekend, 7-8 August.
Yesterday, Minister Chris Hipkins announced invitations to those aged 55 and over would start from Friday 6 August, five
days ahead of scheduled.
“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 are also eligible for these weekend clinics.
Weekend appointments are also available at several of the 67 general practices and pharmacies offering the vaccine
across the district.
Those eligible can book online through BookMyVaccine.nz – the new online national booking system - and the COVID Vaccination Healthline 0800 28 29 26. The Vaccination
Healthline is open from 8 AM to 8 PM, seven days a week.
Latest data show that, in the Southern District, 80 percent of the over 65 population and 77 percent of the over 60
population have either been vaccinated or have 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.”
To date, about 145,000 vaccines have been delivered across the district. Yesterday, over 5,000 vaccines were
administered in Southern, the largest daily output for the district.
Brown extended his thanks to vaccinators and administrators across the health system, including the public health
nursing team and those in the mass vaccination clinics, general practices, rural hospitals, pharmacies, Māori health
providers, aged residential care and our mental health and disability providers for the programme’s success so far.