Covid: Mass vaccination centres open across England

Seven mass vaccination sites have opened across England, as the government claimed it was on target to give the Covid-19 jab to the 13 million most vulnerable people by mid-February.

The new centres – one in each region of the country – are able to inject thousands of patients each week, beginning on Monday with over-80s and healthcare staff.

They will operate alongside more than 1,000 GP surgeries and hospitals already offering vaccinations, with the total number of sites expected to reach 1,200 by the end of the week.

Matt Hancock, the health secretary, said that about two million people had already been vaccinated, including one-third of the over-80s.

“We're on course. The rate-limiting factor at the moment is supply but that's increasing,” he told the BBC.

"Over the last week we've vaccinated more people than in the entirety of December, so we're accelerating the roll-out. At the moment we're running at over 200,000 people being vaccinated every day."

Mr Hancock also pledged to vaccinate every adult by the autumn and  is due to set out the government's vaccines delivery plan at a Downing Street press conference on Monday afternoon.

He described the plan as "the keystone of our exit out of the pandemic", while Nadhim Zahawi, the minister in charge of vaccine deployment, said it will "set out our ambitions for the coming weeks and months as we continue to expand our programme at breakneck speed".

Mr Zahawi was grilled on Monday morning as to why the giant vaccination centres were running only between 8am and 8pm, not 24 hours a day. He said that "we are limited by the amount of vaccine that is coming through", and added that the current opening hours were most convenient for the older people who were being inoculated.

However, the government would "absolutely" move to 24-hour operation if that became possible or necessary, he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

The seven sites opened on Monday were Ashton Gate in Bristol, Epsom racecourse in Surrey, ExCel London, Newcastle's Centre for Life, the Manchester Tennis and Football Centre, Robertson House in Stevenage and Birmingham's Millennium Point.

Letters are being sent out to more than half a million people aged 80 and over who live up to 45 minutes’ drive from the locations, inviting them to book an appointment if they have not already received a jab.

The sites will also vaccinate health and care workers.

Professor Stephen Powis, NHS England’s national medical director, said: "Increasing supplies means the NHS can open even more vaccination services and protect even more people this week.

"While my NHS colleagues are working hard to ensure we can offer vaccines to all of those who would benefit most over the next month, at the same time as providing care for everyone who needs it, we need the public to help us.

"Please don't contact the NHS to seek a vaccine, we will contact you. When we do contact you, please attend your booked appointments."

Boots plans to open its first vaccination site in Halifax later this week to offer the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab to patients booking an appointment through the NHS booking system.

The pharmacy chain said it hoped to open further sites in Huddersfield and Gloucester in the near future.

Seb James, Boots managing director, said: "We hope to help the NHS and enable more people to get the vaccination quickly."