The Government’s Vaccines Delivery Plan is the biggest vaccination programme in British history and the UK is truly leading the charge across the world.
At the time of writing, over 6.8 million people across the United Kingdom have been vaccinated to protect themselves from Covid-19. In the last three days alone, the UK has vaccinated more people than France has done in its entire programme. Last week, the UK broke records in administering over 491,970 vaccines in a single day.
To date, we have vaccinated more people than France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Austria and Belgium combined. Only two countries – the United States and China – have vaccinated more people than the UK.
We are the third country in the world for vaccinations per capita. Only Israel and the UAE have vaccinated more people per capita than the UK – a testament to British science, as we are leading the world from the front in science, research and development.
Up and down the country Covid-19 vaccination centres set up at short notice, and run by teams of doctors, pharmacists, nurses and groups of volunteers are working day and night to roll out the Covid-19 vaccine as fast as possible.
One such example is Bryon Hall - a local landmark in Harrow. Usually renowned for local events, the hall has been transformed into a state-of-the-art vaccination centre. The centre is managed by Dr Kaushik Karia who is helping to oversee the rollout across the borough. Over 17,000 people have already been vaccinated in Harrow. This includes almost all over 80s and people living in care homes. Invitations to over 70 have already been sent out and local vaccination centres will have the capacity to vaccinate around 2000 people per day.
I took local Harrow Members of Parliament, Lord Dolar Popat and Bob Blackman MP to see the centre and witness the operations first-hand. They were content with the facilities available and were thoroughly impressed by the excellent work Dr Kaushik Karia and his team are doing for the community at this unprecedented time. It was heartening to see how the centre was operated according to military precision and we were struck by the dynamism and motivation of the selfless team of volunteers to serve the community.
However, concerns have been raised that misinformation about the Covid-19 vaccine is leading to fears that communities in London worse hit by the virus could be more likely to be hesitant towards vaccination. Figures obtained exclusively by ITV News London last week showed only 56% of British Indians in a survey of 2,000 said they would get a coronavirus jab. This has led to a new community led by British Indian Temples and Community Leaders to better inform community members about the importance and effectiveness of the Covid-19 vaccine. It is the duty of everyone of us to raise awareness about this life saving vaccine to our loved ones and community members.
Going forward the programme continues to gather momentum, with more and more vaccination centres scheduled to be set up day by day to ensure every community is within 10 miles of a vaccination centre. This means there will now be a network of 50 large scale centres, capable of jabbing thousands of people a week across the country. There may still be a long way to go, but as a nation we should be proud of the head start we have made in leading the global fightback against Coronavirus.
