Yahoo Finance Military starts work on Covid vaccination centre in Bristol football stadium
Military personnel have begun to set up a mass vaccination centre at a football and rugby stadium in Bristol, as Boris Johnson said that the new Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine could be ready for rollout in the “next few weeks”.
Members of the armed services were spotted at the Ashton Gate stadium in the city, working from first light until after dusk on Monday preparing the site.
As soon as a vaccine is approved, the plan is to use part of the stadium, home to Bristol City FC and the Bristol Bears rugby team, to administer it to thousands of people from the city and from the neighbouring areas of North Somerset and South Gloucestershire.
NHS chiefs refused to give any details of plans for the site, but Bristol city council confirmed “The work at Ashton Gate is being coordinated by the army in preparation for the NHS-led vaccination programme.”
The council said it was providing public health advice and guidance but the project was being led by the local NHS clinical commissioning group.
During an interview on BBC One’s Politics Live, the mayor of Bristol, Marvin Rees, added: “The aim is that we are ready for anything that comes along that allows us to work for the safety of our population, so we will make sure that everything that we’ve got is in place.”
Rising cases in the south-west of England, which until now has avoided the worst of the Covid crisis, has resulted in Bristol, South Gloucestershire and North Somerset being put into tier 3 after the English lockdown ends this week.
Johnson visited a production facility in north Wales on Monday where details were unveiled of how it would be capable of producing up to 350m vials of the Oxford vaccine in 12 months
On his tour of the Wockardt factory, owned by Indian firm CP Pharmaceuticals, in Wrexham, the prime minister said: “If everything goes right, this could be available just in a few weeks and this could, and I stress could, really be the salvation for humanity, these vaccines, not just this one, but obviously all the vaccines that are currently being developed.”
The government has reserved £50m worth of production capacity over 18 months at CP Pharmaceuticals, which trades under the name Wockardt, and supplies generic drugs to the NHS.
It said on Monday it had the capacity to produce 4,000 vials an hour and is expected to go into production shortly in anticipation of regulatory approval of the drug.
Unite union official Dave Griffiths said the Wrexham site had taken on 40 staff to deal with the demand and planned to produce 150,000 vials a day, five days a week.
Details of how the Ashton Gate operation will work were set out in a report to directors of a local health board on Friday.
The report said the immunisation programme was to be delivered via mass vaccination centres (MVCs), community sites and a “roving model” for care homes and the housebound.
It anticipated delivering 75,000 to 110,000 vaccinations per week to residents of Bristol and the two neighbouring local authority areas starting as early as 7 December and lasting until April next year.
Vaccinations are expected to be given 12 hours a day, seven days a week and £2.3m has been allocated to support the workforce and sites. The report warned it was a “complex and evolving programme”.
It is understood that personnel from all three armed forces are to be involved in setting up and helping to operate the Ashton Gate site and others like it, and the football and rugby teams will continue to play at the stadium because the concourse can be sealed off from the rest of the ground.
It is believed that other sport stadiums and venues in other parts of the country may be used as vaccination sites, with Cheltenham racecourse in Gloucestershire and Epsom in Surrey both thought to be preparing to help.
Such sites have the advantage of wide open spaces that can easily be converted, with good car parking and access. It is thought there will be dozens of MVCs.
Asked about the preparations taking place at Ashton Gate, the prime minister’s spokesperson said only that details would be set out “in due course.”
The NHS in Wales, meanwhile, has carried out a “large and successful test” of practical matters that need to be in place once a vaccine is given the go ahead.
The Welsh first minister, Mark Drakeford, told a press conference in Cardiff on Monday: “That could be as early as this week and we will be ready for it.”
