North Yorkshire vaccine roll-out ‘progressing at pace’
The race to vaccinate North Yorkshire is “progressing at pace”, NHS officials have said.
The race to vaccinate North Yorkshire is “progressing at pace”, NHS officials have said, as the county’s hospitals warn they are facing “unprecedented” pressure from a record number of Covid-19 patients.
Amanda Bloor, accountable officer of NHS North Yorkshire Clinical Commissioning Group, said the health service was at a “dangerous” point in the pandemic with the number of virus patients in hospitals almost doubling in just seven days to surpass the peak of the first wave.
She added, however, there was hope in the “good progress” that had been made on the aim to protect the county’s most vulnerable residents among four priority groups with their first vaccine dose by 15 February.
Mrs Bloor said there are now 12 local vaccination sites online in the county and that approval of the third Moderna coronavirus vaccine was also “really positive news”.
“We are progressing at pace as we get more experienced in delivering the vaccine and as more sites are coming online,” Mrs Bloor told a meeting of the North Yorkshire Local Resilience Forum today.
“We are making really good progress – both nationally and locally – with the vaccination programme and are receiving regular supplies of both the Pfizer/BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines into North Yorkshire.
“We are focusing initially on providing vaccinations to the first four cohorts as prioritised by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation.
“Those cohorts are residents in care homes and their carers, all those over 80, all frontline health and care workers, all those over 75, all those over 70 and clinically extremely vulnerable adults.
“The focus now is on getting as many first doses out to people as possible and the time window between second and first doses has moved from three weeks to 12 weeks.”
Mrs Bloor said because of national policy she could not reveal how many vaccine doses have been given in North Yorkshire but did confirm the location of the 12 vaccination sites in Harrogate, Leyburn, Northallerton, Filey, Whitby, Scarborough, Malton, Pickering, Selby, Tadcaster and two in York.
She said the vaccine is also being administered in Harrogate, York and Scarborough hospitals.
Mrs Bloor warned against reports of vaccine scams and said people would be contacted by the NHS only when it is their turn.