Overwhelming rush for booster vaccines
People from across South West flock to Hungerford drop-in centre on a manic Monday
THE Government-fuelled, pre-Christmas booster rush has seen people coming as far afield at Cornwall to get a jab in West Berkshire.
“I even had one person from Australia,” said Mike Walker, one of an army of volunteers drafted in the day after two of the district’s key centres were initially overrun.
People from as far away as Bristol, Bath, Devon, Portsmouth and even Cornwall flooded to West Berkshire, as Hungerford emerged as one of the few booster drop-in centres in the South West.
Many were turned away. Others faced up to four hours in the queue on Monday.
The site at Hungerford Cricket Club stopped more bookings being made, but honoured the existing ones to balance out the number of walk-ins, eventually managing the queues down to around 30 minutes.
It also constructed a waiting area marquee for those just jabbed to rest and increased the clinical team.
Newbury’s main vaccine centre had to close its doors to walk-ins after being totally overrun following Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s announcement on Sunday night to ramp up vaccination numbers.
“We had no warning, and were already flat out,” said Zohib Sheikh on Monday. Mr Sheikh is in charge of the vaccination team at the Kennet Shopping centre’s new larger hub.
“It has gone from being crazy to – just WOW.
“We are inundated.
“We were given no prior warning and it has gone mad.
“Last weekend we had a 50 per cent walk-in rate, but that is not sustainable.
“We will run out of vaccines so we have to say no to any more walk-ins and just take prior bookings.”
The district’s mobile jab van was also taken off the road this week.
Organisers said its staff were being redeployed to other centres and that the small village halls where it had been scheduled to stop were not big enough to maintain a safe environment.
Next week, the testing van will support the Kennet Shopping centre, offering help and advice with testing and providing testing kits.
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