Dorset County Hospital staff receive second COVID jab this week

Hospital routine is headed back to normality according to bosses.

Author: George SharpePublished 6th Mar 2021

Doctors and nurses at Dorset County Hospital are to receive their second coronavirus vaccine.

The booster jab ensures your body responds strongly to the virus for a longer period.

It comes as cases in Dorset shrink back down to levels similar to mid-December.

Most recent stats show a case rate of 51.3 cases per 100,000 residents over the past 7 days. That’s compared to 50.5 per 100,000 on 13th December.

DCH Chief Medical Officer Alastair Hutchison says the second jabs are producing a sigh of relief amongst staff. He said:

“That… will add to the feeling of things being much better under control.“

“I think there is unquestionably a feeling of things now clearly on the way back to some sort of normality for hospital life.

“The expectation is that things will only continue to improve because the vaccine rollout is happening really rapidly.”

How many have been vaccinated in Dorset?

Latest figures show 308,846 doses of vaccine have been delivered in Dorset – that includes first and second doses.

The next group of people to be vaccinated will be everybody over the age of 60, which Alastair says is a relatively small group as everyone over the age of 65 has already been jabbed.

Staff at the hospital are still going to need to stick to PPE and other safety measures though due to hand to hand contact and other ways the virus can spread.