To mark ‘Boost Day’, Richard Fuller MP has welcomed the news that 33,372 people in North East Bedfordshire have received their Covid booster or third jab, as the Government and NHS continue to step up efforts to ensure that vulnerable people are protected against COVID-19 over the winter.
A year ago on Thursday (Thursday 2 December 2021), the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine was approved for use in the UK, allowing the life-saving vaccination programme to begin, starting with Margaret Keenan’s vaccination on 8 December.
The latest figures show that more than 115 million vaccine doses have been administered across the UK in almost a year – with nine in ten people aged 12 and over having received at least one dose of the vaccine – almost 51 million people – and eight in ten having received both vaccine doses – over 46 million people.
One in three people have now already received their booster jab – 19.4 million people – more than any other country with the exception of the USA and China.
This week, as a precaution in light of the new Omicron variant, the Government has expanded the booster programme to all adults over 18 and announced that all eligible people will be offered a top-up jab by the end of January. To speed up the vaccination programme, around 400 military personnel will be drafted in to support deployment, with 1,500 community pharmacy sites, additional hospital hubs, and pop-up sites opening in convenient locations across the country.
Commenting, Richard said:
It is thanks to the incredible effort and success of the Government’s vaccination programme one year on 33,372 people in North East Bedfordshire have received three Covid vaccine doses, which will offer life-saving protection to them and their loved ones this winter.
I encourage all those eligible who have not yet come forward to take up the offer of a vaccine.
The accelerated programme will be facilitated by reducing the time between 2nd and 3rd vaccinations from 6 months to 3 months. The NHS will work through vaccinations by age group and you will be called when you become eligible. In the meantime please see the NHS website for more details.
