SCHOOLS COULD BE VACCINE CENTRES
TRUST HAS THREE SITES
SCHOOLS in Leicester and Oadby are offering to make themselves available as Covid vaccination centres to try to speed up the rollout of the mass immunisation programme.
The Oaks Multi Academy Trust has five schools, over three sites, which it says could be used to widen out the vaccination programme.
The Leicester and Leicestershire NHS clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), which commission health services, are drawing up plans to widen the vaccination programme across the city and county and say they will announce further details when they can.
However, the trust has said it is prepared to make its Oadby schools, Brookside Primary and Manor High in Copse Close, and Woodland Grange Primary, in Beaufort Way, available, as well as Overdale Infants and Overdale Juniors in Knighton.
The trust’s chairman of governors, Ross Grant, told the Mercury: “At the moment our schools are largely closed, and while our priority is to continue teaching vulnerable and key worker children, there is some flexibility in our estate. Our sites are well-placed within communities and easily accessible.
“We are saying we can make them available if they are needed.
“We certainly won’t be offended if they are not, but I would hate to hear a month down the line that a lack of venues for vaccination is one of the reasons slowing the process down.
“As a trust our aim is to teach children, and if we can help get us to a situation where it is safe to reopen schools as soon as possible, we’ll do what we can.
“Oadby and Leicester do have very high rates of infection and these are the communities our pupils, parents and staff come from. So if we can do anything to help we are ready to.”
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has told MPs schools might reopen to all pupils by February half term if the virus was under control. He said: “Our emergence from the lockdown cocoon will not be a big bang, but a gradual unwrapping.
“That is why the legislation this House will vote on runs until March 31 – not because we expect the full national lockdown to continue until then, but to allow a steady, controlled and evidence-led move down through the tiers on a regional basis.”
Mr Johnson told MPs there would be a “continuous review” of the measures with a statutory requirement to look at them every fortnight.