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Vaccination programme in South Yorkshire 'on track'

280,000 people in South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw will have been vaccinated by mid-February, with a vaccination centre opening at Sheffield Arena this month, programme leads have said.

Sheffield skyline green trees
Benjamin Elliott (Unsplash)

The South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw Covid-19 vaccination programme is on target to vaccinate its top four priority groups by the middle of next month, it has confirmed.

280,000 people will have been vaccinated by mid-February, the programme’s joint responsible officers, representing Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Doncaster Clinical Commissioning Group, said in an update to partners and staff.

As of 14 January, 433,045 vaccines had been delivered in the North East and Yorkshire region, with people over the age of 80 representing almost half of that total.

The four priority groups are: care home staff and residents; over 80s and frontline health and social care workers; over 75s; and over 70s and ‘clinically extremely vulnerable’ individuals.

The programme is set to open an NHS vaccination centre at Sheffield Arena by the end of January, with appointments set via a national booking system.

“The centre will be additional capacity to what is being delivered locally by GP practices and in other community venues and so people should not worry that there is an expectation on them to travel to the centre if they live far from it,” the update document noted.

It is not known whether Covid-19 vaccination prevents people from carrying the virus, so those who have had a vaccine should not change their behaviour with regards to social distancing and lockdown restrictions.

Greg Fell, Sheffield’s Director of Public Health, said yesterday in a position statement that the city's seven-day rate of Covid has fallen from 300 cases per 100,000 people before Christmas to 250 cases per 100,000.

He said that the next six to eight weeks would be "very tough", and that the thing he worries most about is “household-to-household mixing”.

“If we keep a lid on that, we keep a lid on the spread of the new variant.”

by Sam Walby (he/him)
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