New Zealand’s first mass vaccination event, dubbed the Olympics of vaccination, has stuck the landing after a shaky start – exceeding its 15,000-person target over three days.

Northern region mass vaccination lead Alex Pimm confirmed more than 15,700 people had been administered a vaccine between Friday and Sunday at the South Auckland-based event.

“It’s just been an awesome event to be a part of,” he said.

Before the event began, more than 16,500 people had made bookings to get the jab – meaning about 800 people hadn’t turned up to their appointment. The event’s original goal was to vaccinate 15,000 people.

Pimm confirmed feedback would be sought from those involved to see how the process could be improved ahead of the next mass event in six weeks, which would see those who got the jab this weekend offered a second vaccination.

Long queues formed soon after the event’s opening on Friday as administration staff registering people at the Manukau Institute of Technology site struggled to cope with those who arrived early for their appointments.

Wait times of more than an hour slowly reduced later in the day and with extra staff appointed to the MIT site, queues were no longer an issue.

“This event was always designed to help us demonstrate the model and to learn from it and we learned from it really quickly and we made some quick changes,” Pimm said.

“We understand that some people waited longer than we anticipated on Friday and we thank people for their patience.”

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