Shropshire Star

Invites for Covid jabs expected to be sent to over 50s across Shropshire next week

Over 50s are expected to receive their invites to get a Covid jab from next week, health bosses have revealed.

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Telford International Centre is one of the mass vaccination sites in the county

It comes as more than 208,000 people in the county have now been vaccinated, with high uptake from the groups offered the vaccine so far.

Sam Tilley, planning director for Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin Clinical Commissioning Groups, confirmed the news during an online meeting of the CCGs' governance boards yesterday.

She said in the 55-59 age category, who were only invited for their jabs this week, the uptake is already above 45 per cent.

"We are now in striking distance of hitting that 50 per cent of the population mark in the not too distant future," she added.

"We are expecting the 50-54 cohort to open up next week with the ambition that all our over 50s will be vaccinated by the end of March."

She said vaccination supply is expected to increase from next week, as some patients prepare to return for their second coronavirus jab, and gave assurances that the workforce is in place to continue with delivery.

Ms Tilley added: "In terms of our prevalence rates they are improving.

"For Telford and Wrekin, we are at a rate of 51 per 100,000 of population; for Shropshire, 49.8 per cent.

"We have seen some good improvements in those figures over recent times and we hope that continues.

Impact

"We are proceeding with a note of caution and the awareness that as lockdown eases that may have an impact on this downward trajectory."

Liz Noakes, Telford and Wrekin’s director for public health, said: "It is good news in terms of our infection rates coming down to just over 50 per 100,000. That's a 64 per cent reduction in cases in the last week.

"But we do need to be cautious in terms of going forward.

"What we've had in Telford and Wrekin is a long, slow and bumpy decline and those bumps are the outbreaks and we've had significant outbreaks with a number of workplaces over the last few weeks and months.

"Everybody needs to still follow the rules."

David Evans, joint accountable officer for the CCGs, said the Covid vaccination programme had been a "phenomenal achievement".

He told the meeting: "We now have vaccinated well over 200,000 people across Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin.

"To put that into a slight context, on January 9 we'd vaccinated around 11,000 people."

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