Praise for Peterborough and Cambridgeshire vaccination 'heroes' after 60,000 jabs given in a week

On January 17 the county sat third bottom of the English tables for the number of vaccinations given to residents aged 80 and above, with just 45 per cent of the population aged 80 and over given the protection - and a total of 46,540 jabs had been given out in total.

But figures released yesterday showed 81.1 per cent of people aged 80 or over had been given the jab by January 24 - meaning the county is now standing in 20th out of 41 areas in the country.

In total 109,794 jabs had been given out to residents across the county.

MORE: Number of COVID vaccines given out in Peterborough and Cambridgeshire more than doubles in a week

The data does not include those jabs given out in two mass vaccination hubs in the county - one in Thorpe Road, Peterborough, and one in Cambridge. The hubs opened this week, after the January 24 cut off point for the data.

Today Peterborough MP Paul Bristow praised the work of the teams, describing them as 'heroes.' He said: "Peterborough is a special City full of super hardworking people. And of course our NHS Is no different.

"I have been blown away by the efforts made by those vaccinating our City. I saw them in action at the City Hospital and again at Thistlemoor Surgery. I left incredibly moved at what I saw. The progress in the last week or so has been incredible.

"Peterborough thanks them all from the bottom of our hearts. They are heroes. "

Dr Gary Howsam, CCG Clinical Chair of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough CCG said: “We’ve now vaccinated more than 100,000 local people with thousands more being added to this number every day, and remain on track to offer vaccinations to all of the priority cohorts by the middle of February thanks to the hard work of staff and volunteers.

“This week saw two large scale vaccinations centres added to the many sites already up and running, with more due in the coming weeks, and we’d ask you to help us by booking an appointment if you are invited to have your vaccine – it is one of our most effective defences against COVID-19.”