Unvaccinated SA Ambulance Service staff are being barred from COVID-19 ‘red zones’.

An email has been sent to South Australian Ambulance Service (SAAS) staff saying only the vaccinated can attend hospitals, healthcare facilities, airports, medi-hotels and quarantine facilities, as well as COVID-positive patients' homes, which are all classified as ‘red zones’.

The new directive comes after it was revealed that only a third of SAAS staff were fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

Staff who have not had a first vaccination by August 4 and their second by September 15 will not be deployed into red zones.

SAAS chief executive David Place said “Emergency Management Direction 2021” was issued to “support our people to comply with the direction and to continue to provide our service to the community”.

“To set the scene, our current workload in red zones equate to about one emergency case per day, and four non-emergency cases, which are managed by [a fully vaccinated crew],” Mr Place wrote.

“So, this is a rather small response in the metro area only.”

But Mr Place conceded that because “some individuals have chosen not to receive their vaccination”, non-vaccinated crews will be tagged so that they are not dispatched to red-zone jobs.

Staff must now indicate their vaccination status to managers.

He said SAAS would support all staff, regardless of their vaccination status.