Plans for mass coronavirus vaccination centre in Plymouth

Plymouth’s public health director has welcomed the approval for the first vaccine against Covid-19 as “brilliant news”.

Dr Ruth Harrell said the planned roll-out of a mass vaccination programme meant there was “light at the end of the tunnel”.

But she warned that it was likely to be next spring before the full benefits would be felt.

Dr Harrell said that while the second lockdown had seen a fall in the rate of cases in Plymouth, the relaxation of restrictions on social mixing at Christmas created a risk of increased spread of the disease.

The city’s director of public health gave councillors an update on developments at a meeting on Wednesday morning, following an announcement of approval by the UK regulator for the vaccine from Pfizer/BioNTech.

Dr Harrell said the vaccination programme was being led by NHS England. The jabs would be administered at hospitals, by GP practices at community venues, and at a mass vaccination centre which would be set up in the city.

The public health director told the city council’s health scrutiny committee: “There are some challenges around the amount of vaccine we get when we get it, and the logistical challenges associated with the vaccine itself, one of which is the very cold temperature that the Pfizer one requires, and the other one is there are issues around the stability of moving the vaccine around.”

The order of priority for people to receive the vaccine has been set out by the Government’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation. First will be care home residents, then those aged 80 or over and frontline health and social care staff, followed by older people going down through the groups, and people at risk due to health conditions.

Dr Harrell said two vaccinations had to be given two weeks apart, which meant it would be three to four weeks before people could be considered as protected. She said vaccinations were expected to start before Christmas, but the volume needed to cover the whole country meant it would take time.

Dr Harrell added: “There’s an absolute light at the end of the tunnel, but we do have to get through the tunnel first. The light at the end of the tunnel I would say is around spring time.”

Responding to a question about the impact of anti-vaccination claims, Dr Harrell urged people to listen to the advice from NHS England and assurances about the safety of the testing and approval process.

She urged people to get the vaccination when it became available.

The director said: “I really hope that people will listen to the messages that are about to come out from NHS England who will be able to give assurances.

“These vaccines have been through the standard processes. I know they’ve been through quickly, but they have been through exactly the same testing routes and the same scrutiny that any other vaccine has had, and so they absolutely have had that safety profile checked and double-checked.”

She added: “We know vaccination has completely changed the game for infectious diseases for centuries now – it has been the main tool against infectious disease, and I hope that people will see that it is also the main tool against Covid and will willingly be having it.

“I said to my husband this morning, maybe we will go and start queuing now, I’m very keen to have it myself, and I’m sure many of this committee are.”

Dr Harrell said she was not aware of plans for a Covid-19 passport or certificate for people who had received the jab, following a question about reports of businesses which have said they will refuse customers who have not been vaccinated.

She told councillors that the Covid-19 case rate in Plymouth had fallen to around 77 per 100,000 population, below the average for the South West and around half the England rate.

The infection rate among older people in the city was around 35 per 100,000, half the regional rate, and the number of people with Covid-19 in Derriford Hospital had fallen to around 45 from around 100 at the peak of the second wave.

Dr Harrell said the aim of the Tier 2 restrictions was to continue to control the virus, but warned that relied on people carrying on with hygiene measures and social distancing.

She said: “We’re coming out of the lockdown, we’re coming out in a good position, but that doesn’t mean that it’s all positive.

“It doesn’t mean the story is over, there are still a significant number of people every week who are becoming infected, who are developing the disease, and obviously a proportion of those will have a more severe form.”

Dr Harrell warned that the relaxation of restrictions on social mixing over Christmas risked increased spread of the virus. She urged people to think about what was best for them and their families, and to consider how to reduce risks, such as meeting outdoors. People planning to visit vulnerable older relatives could consider isolating for two weeks beforehand, reducing the chance of passing on the virus.

The public health director said: “For your own and your family’s health and wellbeing, if you want to take some of those risks, you need to understand what the risks are and think about how you mitigate against them.

“It is possible of course that if cases rise we might find ourselves in tougher restrictions in January – that’s bad enough.

“But what really worries me is that you can’t undo making somebody ill. If that happens, that would make us all feel dreadful, I’m sure.

“So people need to think really carefully about the family, the situation, who it is they want to see, and how they can minimise the risk to each other.

“One of the key issues with this disease is that you don’t always know if you have it, you don’t therefore know if you can spread it.”