Covid: Yorkshire vaccine centres mark first anniversary of jab

More than 30 staff work at the vaccination centre in a marquee at the Elland Road stadium

Staff at a Leeds vaccine centre said they are "really proud" to mark the first anniversary of the introduction of Covid jabs.

More than 9.5m doses have been delivered across Yorkshire since the rollout began last year.

Sue Peak, who runs the programme in the city, said it had been "demanding and challenging, but so rewarding as well".

The anniversary is being marked by a visit by the Lord Mayor to a vaccination centre at Elland Road.

The Leeds United stadium was one of the first mass centres opened in December last year.

Ms Peak said the centre, housed in a marquee just outside the ground, was run by a staff of more than 30 people.

"I've worked with a small amount of team members now for about a year and we are really close knit with a common aim," she said.

"I've felt pride, I've felt emotion every time we've opened a new centre or done a new venture. That pride and emotion doesn't go away."

Sue Peak said the vaccine rollout in Leeds has been "demanding and challenging, but so rewarding as well"

One visitor to the site was Dave Langridge, 51, from Pudsey who was there to get a booster jab.

Mr Langridge described the vaccination team as "absolute heroes"

"They've done a good job," he said

"They're nice people, I don't like having injections but they are very good about it.

"I've had a positive experience not been kept waiting too long, good on them they've done a great job."

Deputy chief nurse Karen Jessop said vaccination helped Sheffield's hospital cope with winter pressures

The latest government figures show that more than 1.3m vaccine shots have been given in Leeds, with more than 500,000 people getting two doses and 226,884 people having received their booster.

Oluwatofunmilayo, 16, was there to get her second dose after being encouraged by her parents to get vaccinated, "to be more protected for the new variant".

"It's a bit worrying but I feel better now, safer now," she said.

"I feel that it is tested and it seems safe so far. So I don't see any reason not to get vaccinated."

Nurse Amelia Lucking, who usually works in paediatric care, said she was "really proud" of the work done at all the vaccination sites.

"It's a year of fighting towards getting back to as normal as we can towards Covid," she said.

"I never thought when I first came in January 2020 I would still be here a year on, but here we are still going."

At the centre in Longley Lane, Sheffield more than a 1,000 people a day are being vaccinated.

Deputy chief nurse Karen Jessop said the programme had "come a long" way since the first injections were given at the Northern General Hospital on 8 December 2020.

She said hospitals in the city remained "under pressure" with almost 90 patients being treated for the virus and urged the unvaccinated to book an appointment.

"The more people who take up the offer of the vaccine the less likely they are to need admission to hospital and therefore that will leave us to focus on our normal winter pressures that we have," she said.

Janet Cairns came out of retirement to help out with the vaccination effort in Hull

Janet Cairns, who came out of retirement to run a vaccination clinic at Hull Royal Infirmary, said there "was a great sense of relief" when the vaccine was approved.

"It was a new virus, we didn't really understand it or the effects of it," she said.

"So I think when we knew a vaccine was going to be available it was almost a sense of relief that actually we were on a stage now to step back into some sort of normality.

"When we started the programme in December last year I wasn't sure whether any of us expected we'd be still here this year doing it."

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