Over 3,500 People Vaccinated So Far On First Day Of Mass Vaccination Event

Over 3,500 people have received their vaccination so far at the country’s first mass vaccination event in south Auckland today, with three hours of the first day remaining.

Metro Auckland is on track to have its busiest day yet since the COVID-19 vaccination programme began in February, with around 16,000 vaccinations expected to be delivered today across the region.

The day in numbers

· Around 3,500 people were vaccinated from 9am to 4.30pm, with more to come before the day ends around 7.30pm

· 12 vaccinators working 242 vaccination booths

· Over 3,000 lollipops distributed

· Another 11,500 people are expected over the weekend

· Around 16,000 vaccinations are expected to be delivered across metro Auckland today. The previous busiest day was 11,500 vaccinations on Monday this week.

· Auckland’s largest community vaccination centres take around 1,000 people per day, so the mass vaccination event will significantly expand Auckland’s capacity over the weekend.

Alex Pimm, Mass Vaccination Event Lead at the Northern Region Health Coordination Centre, has welcomed the response from the community.

“I want to extend a huge thanks to the south Auckland community for turning up today to make the event such a resounding success.

“We have been delighted to have such a fantastic turnout, which helps to demonstrate that there’s a very strong appetite for this type of event in Aotearoa.

“It has been great to be at the event today and see everyone in positive spirits, and people have been very appreciative of the work our vaccinators are doing to get through such a large number of people.

“We’ve also been pleased to see people making use of our selfie artwork to help spread the word on social media about the vaccination programme.”

The vaccination event will run until Sunday evening at 8pm and an additional 11,500 people are booked in for the rest of the weekend.

The experience of the event today and over the weekend will be used to help to inform how future mass vaccination events are run.

The next event will take place in the same location in six weeks, so that those who attend this weekend’s event can get their second dose. Planning for events in other parts of Auckland is already underway.

“This vaccination event is the first of its kind in the country, so we’ll be taking any learnings from today to help make the rest of this weekend and any future events flow smoothly,” Alex said.

“Lots of people were so eager to come that they turned up early this morning. It was great to see this enthusiasm, although it did result in a queue earlier in the day, so we brought in some additional registration staff to resolve this. We want to thank those who waited earlier on for their patience and we will now have extra registration people on hand throughout the weekend.

“We encourage people who are booked in to come at the time of their appointment, so you don’t have to wait long and we can keep things flowing smoothly.”

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