First 24/7 Covid vaccine clinics will open TODAY alongside jab hubs in mosques and cinemas
THE first 24/7 Covid vaccine clinics will open today alongside hubs in mosques and cinemas.
University Hospitals Birmingham and Sherwood Forest Hospitals in Nottingham will be the first areas to pilot round-the-clock jabs.
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Prime Minister Boris Johnson has promised 24/7 vaccine hubs across Britain “as soon as we can”.
If the pilot scheme is successful, then a network of similar centres will be opened up across the UK.
A mosque in Birmingham and a cinema in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire have also started offering vaccines to vulnerable people.
They will be part of hundreds of pharmacies and local sites targeting hard-to-reach Brits.
By the start of next week, 67 chemists will be offering the vaccine as numbers continue to scale up.
Jabs are already available from over 1,000 GP-led services, more than 200 hospitals and 17 mass immunisation centres.
Three cathedrals – Salisbury, Blackburn and Lichfield – are among the sites helping to deliver the vaccination blitz.
DEADLY TOLL
Hopes of beating Covid mounted last night with record numbers jabbed against the virus – but there were also prayers for the families of the record 1,820 announced to have died yesterday.
But in a sign the tide is slowly turning, more than 343,000 people were immunised on Tuesday – up nearly 20,000 on the previous record.
With 4.6m vaccinations already done, Boris Johnson said Britain remains firmly on course to offer jabs to the nation’s 15m most vulnerable within weeks.
The Prime Minister said “the light will only really begin to dawn as we get those vaccinations up”.
But he also warned of the fatalities that “there will be more to come” in “tough weeks ahead”.
Call to arms - how MPs, celebs and big businesses backed our campaign
A HOST of celebs and politicians threw their weight behind Jabs Army as they praised kind-hearted Sun readers who signed up.
Their calls were led by Boris Johnson, who begged for volunteers to help ‘return the country to normal life’.
The PM wrote personally to our readers, saying: “The Sun’s Jabs Army campaign is a brilliant example of the power of collective action.
“It has already inspired companies and workplaces up and down the country to join the call to arms.
“So today, I call on everyone who has the time to join the legions of volunteers already signed up and to boost volunteer numbers further still.”
Jeremy Clarkson urged Brits to get off the sofa and sign up to beat the lockdown blues.
He said: “Everyone is saying how bored they are. They’ve watched Netflix, gone through everything on the internet, read Google.
“Well let’s not be bored — let’s get off our bottoms and volunteer.”
His call was backed by a string of other celebs – including the Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson, who hailed our campaign as “fantastic”.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock saluted Jabs Army as he addressed the nation in a No10 press briefing.
He said: “Come and be a part of it. The Sun’s Jabs Army is marching and helping the nation.”
GMB host Piers Morgan branded the campaign as “excellent”.
While celebrities like Bear Grylls, Gordon Ramsay and Bake Off’s Matt Lucas have also thrown their support behind the campaign.
Yesterday’s record of 1,820 daily Covid deaths took the UK total to 93,290.
Speaking from No10 on the pandemic’s darkest day yet, Mr Johnson said: “These figures are appalling and of course we think of the suffering that each one of those deaths represent to their friends.
“And I have to tell you, there will be more to come, because what we’re seeing is the result of the new variant that we saw just before Christmas.
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“It spread very quickly, not just in London and the South East where it began but now in virtually in all parts of the country.”
But in a sliver of hope he added: “It looks as though the rates of infection in the country overall may now be peaking or flattening but they’re not flattening very fast.
He said: “We must hope that by getting the numbers of daily infections down – in the way that perhaps has been happening since the lockdown – that will feed through into a reduction in deaths as well.”
