Booster jAbs set to stArt

Health chiefs say they are on track to deliver covid vaccination booster jabs across Peterborough from next Monday.

They say work to prepare for a booster campaign has been going on despite a lack of national clarity on whether the so-called third phase of the vaccination campaign will be rolled out.

Health officials in Peterborough say they are getting ready to beginning pushing out the booster jabs from Monday (September 20). Details of the new campaign were revealed at a virtual ‘summit’ meeting of political, health, business and community representatives to discuss ways of overcoming a reluctance of a high number of Peterborough residents to get vaccinated against Covid-19.

Carol Anderson, of the NHS Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Clinical Commissioning

Group, said: “We are having to plan for phase three, which is the booster vaccine. “There are some things we do know but there are still some things that we don’t know and we are having to make an awful lot of assumptions. “We are waiting for the joint vaccination national group to tell us what the stages will be. We are assuming they will be very similar to the previous phases and we still don’t know at this stage if there has to be a 180-day gap or whether we can do some co-administration with ‘flu.

“We are not waiting around to hear what comes out. “We are planning in advance and we will be able to tweak those plans with a view of going live on September 20 assuming that the national guidance flows in the timeline that it is expected.”

The Department of Health and Social Care did not respond to a request for a response.