Covid: Bridlington doctors offer Christmas Day booster jabs

People in Bridlington can book booster jabs on Christmas Day and over the holiday period

A doctor's surgery in East Yorkshire is offering Covid booster jabs on Christmas Day.

On Monday, Boris Johnson said booster jabs would be offered to everyone over 18 in England, in an attempt to tackle what he called the "Omicron emergency".

The practice in Bridlington is planning to work over bank holidays until the end of the year to meet the target.

Jaya Authunuri, who runs the vaccine service, said it would give four times as many doses as originally planned.

Mr Authunuri said they were adding extra bookable vaccination sessions at the Medical Centre in Station Avenue after holding an emergency meeting with all the town's doctors.

"As health care professionals we understand that the virus out there is actually dangerous and harmful, so it's to provide reassurance that we as the NHS are working hard for them and making sure they get what they need," he said.

"We divided into teams where one part of the team does a normal day-to-day surgery work and the other team focuses on the vaccination."

He added that the clinic was now providing about 1,400 jabs a day with the help of staff and volunteers and with the support of other GP practices in Bridlington.

Jaya Authunuri said they planned to deliver four times as many doses over Christmas as originally planned

To meet the PM's target of getting everyone over 18 vaccinated for a third time by the end of the year more than 1m doses a day will have to be administered.

According to the latest government figures an average of 425,000 booster jabs a day have been given over the last week. Early data suggests that getting a third booster dose gives an individual around 70% to 75% protection against symptomatic infection from Omicron.

Modelling by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) estimates the current number of Omicron infections is around 200,000 a day.