52,500 people in the highest priority groups have received a covid vaccine in York and North Yorkshire, according to Harrogate’s MP.
In an e-mail to constituents, Andrew Jones said a further 12,000 vaccinations had also been carried out in hospitals to frontline staff.
Mr Jones said the figures were correct as of Monday this week.
It comes as health bosses said all care home residents and staff in the county would be vaccinated by the end of this week.
Read more:
- All Harrogate district care homes to get vaccine this week
- Harrogate people don’t have to travel to York for vaccine, say health bosses
- Ripon to get its own coronavirus vaccination site
Amanda Bloor, accountable officer at North Yorkshire CCG, told a North Yorkshire Resilience Forum meeting earlier this week:
“I am pleased to say that thanks to the tremendous effort from all of our colleagues delivering the vaccination programme, we are on course to deliver vaccination to all care home residents and staff by the end of this week.”
Ms Bloor added that officials were making “good progress” towards vaccinating all healthcare workers by the end of the month as well as the February 15 target set by the government for all priority groups.
Vaccinations in the Harrogate district are being administered at the Great Yorkshire Showground. However, a mass vaccination hub opened on Monday in York, which offers jabs to those within a 45 minute distance.
Health bosses announced a vaccination site will be opened in Ripon, but details on its location have yet to be confirmed.
Officials have also said people in the district can wait for an invite to the Great Yorkshire Showground instead of travelling to York.
MP hits out at covid vaccine supply reports
Mr Jones also hit out at reports that the supply of coronavirus vaccines to Yorkshire will be halved next week.
In his email, he addressed “covid-19 fake news” and went on to say a story regarding vaccine supply “was wrong”.
It follows reports in the Health Service Journal that the North East and Yorkshire will see its supply halved next week because it is ahead of other regions in vaccinating its eligible population.
The HSJ reported that the region is set to see does available to GP-led sites down by 200,000 compared to this week.
Mr Jones has said reports of the halve in supply are “wrong in terms of numbers and trend”.
He said:
“Reports that the number of vaccines supplied to our region are being halved are just wrong.
“I have checked this with the NHS and the number of vaccines supplied to our region this week is 364,000, next week it will be 300,000 and the week after that 350,000.
“The story is wrong in terms of numbers and trend.”
However, Dr Nikki Kanani, medical director of primary care at NHS England, told BBC Radio 4 Today programme that vaccines were being diverted away from areas like the North East and Yorkshire.
She said:
“Yes I really understand my colleague’s frustration, particularly in this case it happens to be in the northern areas, they’ve done an incredible job getting through their cohort priorities one and two, so their care home staff and residents, their over 80s and their health and social care staff.
“And so while we have a supply that is constrained we need to make sure that goes to the areas where people are not vaccinated, because what we have to do, our priority is to make sure that the top priority groups are vaccinated as quickly as possible.
“So we need to target our deliveries to make sure that they are going to areas where there are more people left to vaccinate in the priority cohorts.”
