Covid-19: Mass vaccination hub opens in Peterborough's City Care Centre

Peterborough's City Care Centre will become one of 32 new sites in the country

A new mass NHS Covid-19 vaccination centre is opening in Peterborough.

The City Care Centre on Thorpe Road will become one of 32 new sites opening across the country this week.

It will open for frontline health and social care workers on Monday and Tuesday, and for people over 80 from Wednesday.

Latest government data showed Cambridgeshire had vaccinated 45% of people aged over 80 with a first dose compared to a UK figure of 75%.

The most recent statistics are for vaccinations up to 17 January.

Peterborough's Conservative MP Paul Bristow previously said the city's mass vaccination centre was "fabulous news".

"It means we can go faster and further and we can get as many people protected as possible," he said.

Latest figures showed all districts in Cambridgeshire had a week-on-week fall in case rates.

• Covid-19: Case rates in Cambridgeshire

• How will the UK vaccinate millions of people?

• Nurse's rash warning after son's Covid diagnosis

Other mass vaccination centres opening this week include ones at the Black Country Living Museum in Dudley, a former Ikea store at the Westfield shopping centre in Stratford, London, and the Blackpool Winter Gardens.

NHS England said the large-scale hubs could vaccinate thousands of people a week.

It said that as of this week there would be nearly 50 vaccination centres, more than 250 hospitals hubs, and more than 1,000 local vaccination service sites run by GPs and pharmacies, across the country.

NHS England has described the vaccine rollout as the biggest immunisation programme in its history.