Covid 19 Delta outbreak: Queenstown ahead of Dunedin in race to be most vaccinated

The Queenstown-Lakes District is now the most Covid-protected place in the country with nearly 100 per cent of residents having had one dose of the vaccine. Photo / Michael Craig

The Queenstown-Lakes District is now the most Covid-protected place in the country, with nearly 100 per cent of residents having had one dose of the vaccine.

The latest data from the Ministry of Health shows, as of this morning, 81.3 per cent of the population is fully vaccinated. 96.7 per cent of residents have had at least one dose of the vaccine.

It falls within the Southern DHB area which has a 73.7 per cent full vaccination rate as of yesterday.

Queenstown-Lakes overtook Dunedin, which has been leading the ranks for three weeks. The city has now dropped into second place with 80.7 per cent of people fully vaccinated.

The Herald is regularly publishing the proportion of people partially and fully vaccinated across all 66 New Zealand territorial authorities, highlighting the top 20 towns.

Wellington has jumped up a place and now sits in third with 78.6 per cent of people fully vaccinated. In comparison, 76 per cent of the Capital and Coast DHB area have had two jabs.

Marlborough (77.9 per cent) and Auckland (77.2 per cent) round out the top five.

75.3 per cent of those in the Nelson Marlborough DHB area have had two jabs.

Auckland will move into the Government's new traffic light framework when it has hit a vaccination target of 90 per cent across all three of its DHBs.

As of yesterday, the Auckland DHB had a full vaccination rate of 81.8 per cent, Waitematā 76.6 per cent and Counties Manakau 73.6 per cent.

The rest of the country will move into the framework when each individual DHB hits a target of 90 per cent.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Auckland is scheduled to hit its target before Christmas, meaning relative freedoms will return by the summer.

There are three stages of the framework but all three allow relatively high rates of freedom compared to the current alert level system. However, they will also require the use of vaccine certificates for nearly everything apart from essential retail and services, like supermarkets and GPs.