Sports halls, community hubs and old department stores set to open as mass vaccination centres
Sports halls, community hubs and old department stores have been lined up as mass vaccination centres.
Jabs will start this week in buildings converted into makeshift health clinics.
Councils have been asked to identify buildings that can be used.
Bloxwich Leisure Centre will open this week to people in vulnerable groups, with Oak Park Active Living Centre in Walsall Wood also expected to be used.
Walsall Arena and Arts Centre in Bloxwich and the old TJ Hughes store in the Saddlers Centre are understood to have been lined up as back up sites.
In Sandwell the Lyng Centre in West Bromwich has been put forward as a site, as well as one of the borough’s main community hubs.
And before Christmas the Prime Minister confirmed Dudley’s Black Country Living Museum would be used.
Council chiefs in Wolverhampton say a number of large sites are being looked at, as is the case with Staffordshire.
The ramping up comes following the release of the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab and the commitment nationally to vaccinate two million people a week.
It is hoped most of those aged over 70 as well as care home residents and health workers will be protected by the end of February.
Walsall North MP Eddie Hughes said: “Whilst it is incredibly good news that we have got the vaccine and that the Government has committed to rolling it out at scale, it is so important that people maintain the basics of hands, face and space.
“It worries me that people focus on the vaccine and don’t feel so committed to sticking to the rules."
Walsall Council leader Mike Bird said: “Momentum when it builds up will give us some confidence we can defeat this virus.
"That is the real silver bullet – to get as many people vaccinated as possible. But we need the public to listen to advice.”
Lichfield MP Michael Fabricant said he expects mass vaccinations to start in Lichfield and Burntwood from central locations sometime next week.
He added: “With the high rate of contagion of this new Covid, it is essential that we all stick to the rules.
“We will see an end to this. But in the meantime, we must all demonstrate the sense of community and spirit that our region is so well known for.”
Hospital patients aged over 80, frontline health staff and care home workers have been the first to get the Pfizer jab at designated hospitals hubs, while the first Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccinations are being carried out in hospitals before supplies are dispatched to hundreds of GPs surgeries and care homes.
This first phase of the vaccination programme covering priority groups is likely to last until at least Easter.
