North West health bosses warn of dangers of lockdown being eased too soon

It's warned people across Wigan and St Helens need to be careful as lockdown starts to ease.

By the government's current roadmap, all restrictions are set to lift by the 21st June.

John Ashton, former Public Health Director for the North West, said: "Everybody's being led to believe they can have normal summer holidays at their favourite Spanish holiday resorts, which may not be a good idea.

"25 million people in the UK have had their first vaccine, some of them have had their second, but that still leaves 40 million people who haven't had any vaccine so far.

"The Chief Medical Officer has warned of a further wave in the autumn, and I think we have to be prepared - as we had to be right at the very beginning - to assume that this could get bad and we have to do everything in our power and our control to make sure it doesn't."

There's also expected to be a shortfall in vaccine supply as we head into April.

People in St Helens are being urged to call their GP book their vaccine today if they're in priority groups 1-9 and haven't already had the jab.

It comes after the local NHS CCG received 1,800 jabs for today that need to be administered.

The government said it's because of delivery delays from the manufacturer in India and and the need to retest a batch of 1.7 million doses.

The Prime Minister said: "We have always said that in a vaccination programme of this pace and this scale, some interruptions in supply are inevitable.

"It is true that in the short term we are receiving fewer vaccines than we had planned for a week ago, that is because of a delay in a shipment from the Serum Institute - who are doing a herculean job in producing vaccines in such large quantities - and because of a batch that we currently have in the UK that needs to be retested as part of our rigorous safety programme.

"As a result, we will receive slightly fewer vaccines in April than in March but that is still more than we received in February and the supply we do have will still enable us to hit the targets we have set.''

The over-50s and the clinically vulnerable will still be offered a first dose by April 15, and second doses will be available to around 12 million people in April.

Every adult will be offered a first dose by the end of July, as planned, he said.