Covid-19: Newmarket Racecourse opens as vaccine hub

Newmarket Racecourse's Rowley Mile course is Suffolk's the second large-scale vaccine centre

One of Britain's best known horse-racing venues has opened as a mass vaccination centre.

The hub at Newmarket Racecourse's Rowley Mile course is the second large-scale site to be opened in Suffolk.

It started immunising people aged over 70 on Saturday and said it could vaccinate thousands of people a week.

Latest figures showed 71% of people aged over 80 in Suffolk and north-east Essex had been given the first dose of vaccine as of 24 January.

Jenny Hubbard was among the first to get her vaccine at Newmarket Racecourse

Jenny Hubbard, who was among the first to get her vaccine at Newmarket Racecourse, said: "I wasn't nervous, I was just relieved. I think everybody is."

Grace Gibson, who also got her vaccine there, said she "didn't feel a thing".

The centre said it hoped to vaccinate 1,000 people within the first few days

Pharmacy2U, which is running the centre, said the first day had gone "really smoothly".

It said it hoped to vaccinate 1,000 people in the next couple of days and to "build that up as the NHS priority groups expand into other age ranges".

Grace Gibson said she "didn't feel a thing" when she had her vaccine

Suffolk's first mass vaccination centre opened at Gainsborough Sports Centre in Ipswich on Tuesday.

Figures showed there were 1,982 new Covid cases in the county in the seven days to 24 January, which was down by a third from the week before.

The number of people being treated for coronavirus in Ipswich and Colchester hospitals had also fallen, from 526 to 440.

Newmarket Racecourse this year marks 355 years since King Charles II's three-mile, six-furlong Round Course - the first "modern" racecourse - was first used.

John Berry, the former mayor of Newmarket, previously described it as the "undisputed headquarters of racing".