Despite being initially under the impression staff had until November 29 to be double-vaccinated, the hospitality industry has been told there is no wriggle room on the issue.

This comes despite health care workers and teachers still only needing a first jab to be able to work for now.

More news: State records more than 2000 COVID cases on final day of lockdown

It was also despite online health directions stating authorised workers, including hospitality, must have one dose of a vaccine by October 22, with a second dose required by November 26.

When questioned at Thursday's press conference, COVID Commander Jeroen Weimar took a firm stance.

"There is no wriggle room because the reason we are opening up from midnight tomorrow night is because the vast majority of us are fully vaccinated," Mr Weimar said.

"We would expect the people that are now being asked to please come back into work are the first ones to have got themselves organised to get themselves fully vaccinated so that they can serve their customers. It does not seem an unreasonable proposition to me."

Mr Weimar said businesses had known for some time that vaccination was going to be a requirement among staff.

Other news:

"If seven out of 10 of us are vaccinated, finding people to work should not be the barrier in the way," Mr Weimar said.

"We have been talking about vaccination for the last six months and we have been talking about the critical relationship between the vaccination thresholds and opening up since the beginning of August and September.

"So we have all had a long time to get used to this.

"The sheer number of people getting vaccinated every day - close to 100,000 now getting vaccinated every day - indicates that we have all got the message that we need to get vaccinated."

As of Friday regional hospitality venues will be able to open to 20 fully vaccinated people indoors and 50 outdoors.

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can access our trusted content: