Region needs clarity on mass vaccination rollout: The Yorkshire Post says

For anyone in any doubt about the bleak national picture, Chris Hopson, the chief executive of NHS Providers, explained yesterday that they have seen 5,000 new patients with Covid in hospital beds in the past week - a number equivalent to 10 full hospitals’ worth of Covid patients.

The arrival of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine offers considerable light at the end of the tunnel, given that it is considerably easier to administer than the Pfizer jab because it can be stored at normal fridge temperatures.

While 1,000 sites around the country should be delivering vaccinations by the end of this week, people in Yorkshire will be keen to hear when and where mass vaccination centres will open in our region with none among the seven announced to open next week in London, Newcastle, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Surrey and Stevenage.

In places like North Yorkshire, where there is a large population of older people, many who will be on the priority list are still waiting to hear when they will have their jabs.

Delivering an effective mass vaccination programme is understandably challenging for the Government but by the same token, it is one area of the Covid response where there has been considerable time to plan for the logistics and it is the central plank of the strategy to extract ourselves from the crisis. There is now a race on between infections and injections and every effort must be made to ensure it is the latter which comes out on top.

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