Vaccine ‘ within weeks’
BORIS Johnson is hoping mass vaccination against coronavirus will begin “within weeks” as scores of venues are readied.
Village halls and leisure centres have been requisitioned to welcome volunteers for the jab, the Daily Express has learned.
The Prime Minister said he was hopeful the vaccine will soon be approved and rolled out as the “salvation for humanity”.
On a visit to a laboratory in North Wales where a British vaccine is set to be produced, he said: “This could – could, if we’re lucky, if everything goes right – be available just in a few weeks.
“This could – and I stress could – really be the salvation for humanity, these vaccines, not just this one but obviously all the vaccines being developed.”
Mr Johnson toured Wockhardt’s facility in Wrexham where it is hoped the shot developed by Oxford University scientists and AstraZeneca will be produced.
In a mobilisation evoking memories of wartime Britain, facilities are being handed over to the NHS so millions can quickly get a lifesaving vaccine.
Proud
The Daily Express was granted exclusive access to two venues where the jab will be administered around the clock. Cranleigh Village Hall in Surrey has been commandeered by health chiefs and from today will only be used to give lifesaving jabs.
Parish council chair Elizabeth Townsend, 56, said: “This is a national effort but we are proud to be playing our part in it.” The village hall, built in 1933, served as the headquarters of the Home Guard during the war and doubled as a classroom when the infant school was flattened by a V- 1 flying bomb in 1944.
It has a capacity of 250. If a jab was administered every minute clinicians could inoculate 5,000 people every week.
And up in the East Midlands the 5,000- capacity Derby Arena, which should be getting ready to stage Sleeping Beauty, has instead been offered as a vaccine venue by council leader Chris Poulter.
He told this newspaper: “The design, facilities, location, size and parking areas are considered perfect for such a vital facility.”
The NHS is recruiting novice first- time vaccinators at £ 134 a day.
The Army will assist Public Health England with the logistics of moving vaccines to locations where the jab will be given.