On Sunday, Boris Johnson announced that all adults who have not yet had a booster jab will be offered a jab before the New Year. Here in Ludlow, GPs have been working flat out to ramp up the booster programme, which was already well underway. There will be additional booster clinics in Ludlow run by Portcullis and Station Drive surgeries on Thursday, Saturday and Sunday offering around 3,800 booster jabs. Patients who are eligible are being contacted by text and by phone.
As always, please don’t ring your surgery to chase up your appointment. That would put additional pressure on our hard pressed receptionists who need to deal with the day-to-day needs of the practice’s patients.
With GPs confident that a third dose can be offered to all adults in south west Shropshire before the New Year, there is no need to travel long distances to queue for a third jab, unless of course you need it urgently.
Speaking to the House of Commons yesterday, Health Secretary Sajid Javid said:
“No variant of covid-19 has spread this fast. There are now 4,713 confirmed cases of omicron in the UK [confirmed by genomic sequencing]. The UK Health Security Agency estimates that the current number of daily infections are around 200,000. While omicron represents more than 20% of cases in England, we have already seen it rise to over 44% in London, and we expect it to become the dominant covid-19 variant in the capital in the next 48 hours.”
Yesterday, long queues of up to five hours developed outside drop in vaccination centres around the country. There are several drop-in centres around the county, including Station Drive, which held a session last night and will continue Tuesday evenings, 5.30pm to 6.30pm. The Times and FT report this morning that some NHS managers are saying there is not sufficient capacity to delivery five million boosters a week. That is not the case in south west Shropshire and Ludlow where our GPs are confident they will meet the New Year target.
Boris Johnson and the chief executive of NHS England yesterday called for a new wave of volunteers to support the booster drive. The government has also drafted in 42 military planning teams across the country, 750 personnel according to one media report.
Vaccinations
On 12 December 2021, the following per cent of eligible people over 17 years of age had been vaccinated:
- Shropshire. Two doses: 88.3%. One dose: 82%.
- Ludlow. Two doses: 84.8%. One dose: 90.2%.
Across Shropshire, 54% of people over 18 years of age had had a third jab by 12 December. That leaves 126,305 adults waiting for their third dose. Data for the third doses is not available at a more local level. The graphs below do not exclude those who are unable to be vaccinated or refuse as accurate data on this is not available.
