Seven mass vaccination sites against coronavirus were opened across England on Monday, as the government rushed to dose millions of people as a new strain of the disease spread across the country.
The sites include football stadiums and a horse racing field and are located in cities like Bristol, London, Newcastle and Manchester.
They are expected to vaccinate thousands a week, with several other locations to be followed, according to the National Health Service (NHS) in England.
“I’m very relieved,” said Moira Edwards, 88, after receiving her first vaccination at Epsom Downs Racecourse, south London, which is most famous for Derby.
“I feel like this is the way back. I can’t understand anyone who doesn’t want to have it.”
The mostly elderly recipients of the jab, some of whom used walkers, poles or were pushed in wheelchairs to get to the center, were given “I got my Covid vaccination” stickers.
Hospitals and pharmacies are expected to start offering the vaccine this week, and the government hopes to have doses available to 12 million of England’s 56 million population by mid-February.
Another three million are being targeted to date in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Priority is being given to the elderly, residents and nursing home workers, clinically extremely vulnerable people and health and social care personnel.
About 2.4 million people have been vaccinated across the UK since the launch of the Pfizer-BioNTech jab began on December 8, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on a visit to Bristol.
That includes 40 percent of people over 80 and almost a quarter of nursing home residents, he added, calling it a “race against time” as the cases are attributed to the new variant increase.
Britain also approved the Oxford-AstraZeneca and Moderna jabs, and enlisted army logistics experts to help with the inoculation campaign.
– ‘Worst weeks’ –
Britain is struggling with its worst outbreak since it arrived early last year.
Record case rates and the number of daily deaths are being attributed to a new, more contagious strain that has put pressure on the NHS, leading to warnings about the shortage of intensive care beds.
The state NHS is in danger of being overloaded and the country is in its third blockade until at least mid-February, with predictions that the restrictions may last even longer.
In Northern Ireland, chiefs of health said that provincial hospitals are under intense pressure, and two health institutions have had to call out-of-service staff to ease the pressure due to the increase in cases.
“The next few weeks will be the worst of this pandemic in terms of numbers on the NHS,” England’s medical director Chris Whitty told BBC television on Monday.
“What we need to do before the vaccines are effective … we really need to double the volume” in observing the blocking measures, he added.
Britain said on Saturday it had recorded more than three million cases of coronavirus since the pandemic began last year.
On Friday, he reported a record 1,325 deaths over a 24-hour period of people who tested positive for the virus, fearing that fatalities could remain consistently high for weeks.
The total death toll now stands at over 80,000, the highest in Europe.
In Leatherhead, near Epsom, the bodies were being stored in a temporary morgue with a capacity of 1,400 because there was no space in local hospitals.
Blocking rules include closing schools, but the government has been criticized for not going further, with evidence of a continuous mix of close contacts. The government does not require people to wear masks outside.
But Johnson said that while the rules were kept under review, adherence to existing guidelines would make a “huge, huge difference” to reduce infection rates.
He warned against “false confidence (e) false complacency” because of the launch of the vaccine, which aims to reach all adults by the end of October.
Britain was at a “very dangerous time,” he said. “Now is the time for maximum vigilance, maximum observation, observance of the rules.”
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