Southern DHB Media Update - Friday 3 September 2021
SWABBING – Attributable Dr Michael Butchard, Medical Officer of Health, Southern
Today more than 143 COVID-19 tests were taken by WellSouth staff and general practices around the district*.
*Please note testing data is preliminary and may vary from final data published by the Ministry of Health. It reflects recorded tests until 3pm. These figures are liable to change as testing continues during the late afternoon/evening.
VACCINATION* – Attributable Hamish Brown, Southern COVID-19 vaccine programme lead
The Southern DHB has delivered 290,318 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to date, 95,698 of which were second doses. Across the district 66.1% of people aged 12 and over have received at least one dose of the vaccine, with 32.8% fully vaccinated.
The programme has been delighted with the response from the public, especially in the last few weeks, with about 2/3 of our population now having received a vaccine. This wouldn’t be possible without the hard work of all the teams on the ground who have continued to work tirelessly to protect the public in spite of the recent restrictions.
*Please note these vaccination figures are indicative only and reflect vaccination numbers up to 4pm daily. These figures are liable to change as vaccination centres continue to vaccinate people during the late afternoon/evening.
CONTACT TRACING – Attributable Dr Michael Butchard, Medical Officer of Health, Southern
As of 5.00pm today (Friday 3 September), the national contact tracing system has fewer than five people recorded as close contacts in the Southern region.
Public Health South continues to manage around 80 close contacts who are either currently or have been symptomatic since being at a location of interest. Most of these close contacts are in Auckland.
THANK YOU TO THE MEDIA
Southern DHB Communications Team would like to thank members of the media for their support over the last three weeks during this most recent COVID-19 response.
Thank you for helping us get important health messages out to our communities across the Southern district. Thank you for being champions for and representatives of your communities, for recognising the efforts of essential workers, including health workers and the vaccine rollout team, and thank you for your patience and understanding with us as we worked through the large volume of issues and inquiries that we received.
From today our media updates will occur as and when required. If in future we need to return to daily updates because circumstances warrant it, we will do so.
Meanwhile, please feel free to send your media inquiries to communications@southerndhb.govt.nz.
Kind regards,
Southern DHB Communications Team.