EXCLUSIVE: First teachers in Greater Manchester vaccinated
Teaching staff in Salford have been offered doses of a coronavirus vaccine overnight as jabs were due to expire.
Last updated 3rd Feb 2021
We can exclusively reveal that overnight teachers in Salford were among some of the first in Greater Manchester to be given a coronavirus vaccine.
Staff were invited to Clarendon Leisure Centre just before 10pm last night as doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech were due to expire within hours and would have otherwise gone to waste.
Despite the cold and wet weather, streams of people arrived to receive the jab late at night.
As a result of the effort to use up jabs, the centre achieved a record 1,000 injections in just one day.
Mark is a teacher in the city, he was among those to get vaccinated.
He told Hits Radio: "Initially when I was told I felt a sense of guilt. I'm a fit, healthy young male. I felt someone else deserved it more than I do.
"But when I discovered they were going to waste I thought it was great they were going to key workers. Teachers are mixing with different people and families every day."
'I didn't think it would be happening so soon'
Last week, it was revealed that more than 300,000 first doses of coronavirus vaccines have been handed out across Greater Manchester so far.
There has been national debate about where teachers should sit on the vaccine priority list, with some calling for them to higher on the list.
Mark says it's overwhelming that some teachers are now being offered the jab: "There's still uncertainty about going into work. Now I've been vaccinated it's a sense of relief, it's quite emotional. It's a day I didn't think would be happening so soon."
In a statement the Department of Health told Hits Radio:
“We continue to follow the advice of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, whose priority list is designed by experts and clinicians to prioritise those at greatest risk from coronavirus.
“The NHS is working at pace to vaccinate the most vulnerable and we are on track to meet our target of offering a first dose to the top four priority groups by mid February.
“As we’ve said, supply is the limiting factor but our approach so far has ensured we’ve vaccinated over 8.9 million people, more than any country in Europe.”