The UK government says hubs will operate as vaccination centres in London, Newcastle, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Surrey and Stevenage
The locations of seven new mass vaccination centres for COVID-19 that will be opening next week have now been revealed by the UK government.
The seven announced locations for the coronavirus mass vaccination centres are: Robertson House in Stevenage; the ExCel Centre in London; the Centre for Life in Newcastle; the Etihad Tennis Centre in Manchester; Epsom Downs Racecourse in Surrey; Ashton Gate Stadium in Bristol and Millennium Point in Birmingham.
According to the Press Association, other facilities that are under consideration for more centres include Derby Arena; the Black Country Living Museum, Dudley; Malvern’s Three Counties’ Showground, Worcestershire; Villa Park, home of Aston Villa FC; and Leicester Racecourse.
This comes after Michael Gove has warned that there are “very, very difficult weeks ahead” as England battles to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus in the country, which is being driven by a new COVID variant that has been judged to be between 50% and 70% more transmissible than the previous one.
The supermarket chain Morrisons has confirmed that the car parks at their stores in Yeovil, Wakefield and Winsford locations will be hosting drive-through vaccinations from Monday, with another 47 offered up.
In addition, the Premier League football team Tottenham have offered the use of their stadium in north London to the NHS as a venue to roll out the mass vaccination strategy.
The Royal Vauxhall Tavern and G-A-Y, also in London, have offered to help support the coronavirus vaccination drive.
Declaring that the United Kingdom was now engaged in a “sprint” to vaccinate those in the country who are at a higher riskof catching the coronavirus, he urged the British public to “give our army of vaccinators the biggest head start we possibly can”.
Mr Johnson said the emergence of multiple vaccines has given the UK “not only the sight of the finish line, but a clear route to get there”.
But in order to “win this race for our population”, the PM said people “must once again stay at home, protect the NHS and save lives”.
This comes after Brian Pinker, an 82-year-old dialysis patient has become the first to receive the newly approved Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine for COVID-19, after Over half a million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine were made ready for use on Monday.
The Prime Minister said that there were now almost 1,000 vaccination centres across the nation, adding this included “595 GP-led sites, with a further 180 opening later this week, and 107 hospital sites – with another 100 later this week”.
