Newcastle is not being given enough Covid vaccines to catch up in the race to protect people against the virus, a city health chief has warned.
Throughout the pandemic, Newcastle’s vaccination rates have lagged behind neighbouring areas in the North East and the national average. Currently, just under 54% of eligible people in the city have had their third or booster dose of a Covid vaccine compared to 68.6% across England.
On the day that it was announced that the vaccination facilities at the Centre for Life, one of the biggest jab sites in the country, was closing down, concerns were aired that Newcastle does not have a sufficient supply of doses. It comes as case rates have begun climbing again and virus outbreaks have been reported in a number of Newcastle care homes.
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Lorna Smith, Newcastle City Council’s interim director of public health, told councillors on Thursday that there was “a lot of work to do on vaccinations”. She said: “Currently one of the real challenges we have is our vaccine allocation.
"We are receiving limited vaccine availability that we can actually allocate. We are trying to work very closely with our NHS partners to make sure the vaccine supply we have got is being allocated fairly and reaching those most at risk still.”
75% of people in Newcastle have had one Covid vaccine, 70% have had two doses, and 53.7% a booster – all well below the England average figures of England - 93.2%, 87.2%, and 68.6% respectively.
Ms Smith told the council’s health scrutiny committee: “The number of vaccines we are receiving is not enough to make substantial gains in our current booster profile population. What we want to do is make sure the evergreen offer is still open, so it is really difficult if we are only getting a couple of hundred or not very many each week.
“It is about how best we use them and where we use them. We do anticipate there will be more supply coming with the autumn campaign, but currently supply is quite challenging in terms of how we allocate it and where to make sure it is all used.”
Ms Smith confirmed that there had been an uptick in Covid cases over recent weeks, including among the more vulnerable over-60s, and warned that the North East was “not out of the woods” despite the virus now posing far less of a threat thanks to the vaccine rollout. Just under 3% of people in Newcastle are thought to currently have Covid, while the health expert said that cases had been reported in a number of care homes and in special schools.
She added: “Unfortunately we have seen an increase in the over-60s consistently since the start of June. It was actually the weekend before the Jubilee that we started to see an uptick and some admissions to hospital were reported to the Covid control group. Some of that was, I think, half-term and mixing and more international travel for those who could get flights.
“Since then it has continued to increase and see an upward trend in cases. We have seen that in a number of our care homes, small controlled outbreaks. But certainly it is additional pressure and what we are really mindful of is that any case of Covid is unsettling and concerning to residents and staff, who have been through more than enough in the last few years.”
The current rate of Covid infections across the North East, as of June 26, was:
- Northumberland - 253.54 (cases per 100,000 people)
- Gateshead - 244.12
- North Tynside - 231.72
- County Durham - 224.14
- Sunderland - 208.03
- Newcastle - 199.53
- South Tyneside - 173.36
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