Vaccinations for people 45 years and over have begun in Southland and Otago.  

They are available to book at vaccination centres in Invercargill, Dunedin, Queenstown Lakes, as well as a number of general practices and pharmacies across the district.  

Hamish Brown, Southern DHB Covid-19 Vaccine Rollout Incident Controller, says more locations will become available during August as the vaccination rollout progresses.

Earlier this week, Minister Chris Hipkins announced invitations to those aged 55 and over would start from today, Friday, 6 August, five days ahead of scheduled.

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Vaccines for the over 45s were due to begin mid-August, but it appears SDHB is ahead of that schedule.

Southland App has asked the SDHB for more information.  

Everyone in New Zealand has been placed in one of four vaccine groups, based on risk. Group 1 is border, managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) workers. They were the first to receive the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.

Group 2 is high-risk frontline workers and people living in high risk places. Group 3 is people who are at risk of getting very sick from Covid-19. 

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And Group 4 is everyone else, separated by age, with people aged 60 and over the first invited, then 55 and over, and now 45 and over. People 35 and over are expected to be invited in mid-to-late September, and 16 and over in October.

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 yesterday.

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

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To date, about 150,000 vaccines have been delivered across the SDHB's coverage area. 

Wednesday was a record day, with 5000 vaccines administered. 

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. 

The SDHB is also running open clinics for anyone in Groups 1, 2, 3 or aged 55 and over this weekend. 

"As part of our scaling up of the programme we have started offering weekend appointments at our vaccination centres in Dunedin and Invercargill," 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.”

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

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Anyone who gets the first dose of the vaccine then will get the second dose, at least 21 days apart.

The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is free and studies show about 95% of people who have received both doses are protected against getting COVID-19 symptoms.

Up-to-date information on the vaccine can be found at www.covid19.govt.nz/covid-19-vaccines.