York adds 7,000 extra Covid booster appointments

Nimbuscare said it was working to increase capacity at its mass vaccination site in York

An additional 7,000 Covid-19 vaccination appointments have been created for this week at York's mass vaccination centre.

The appointments come after the government set a target of giving all adults in England a third jab before the end of December.

Nimbuscare, which runs the centre at Askham Bar in York, said people should only book through the national system.

It said it was also working to add further additional appointments.

"We will be putting on additional availability of appointments through the national booking system over the next few days and we've already put an extra 7,000 appointments on for this week already," Dr Mike Holmes said.

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The prime minister announced on Sunday he was bringing forward the deadline for all over-18s in England to receive a booster from the end of January to the end of December.

He said the coming "tidal wave" of the Omicron variant would see the NHS overwhelmed unless the vaccination programme was accelerated.

Dr Holmes admitted it was short notice, but said the teams responsible for delivering the vaccination programme were used to it.

"The team are springing into action, straight into planning mode and starting to look at what additional capacity we can offer in the city with almost immediate effect," he said.

The government wants all adults in England to receive a booster by the end of December

He said the government's aim to vaccinate so many people in the coming weeks was a "huge task" and urged people to be patient.

"Just give us a little bit of time," he said.

"This is a logistical issue, we need to just plan it properly and make sure the availability is where it needs to be."

Dr Holmes urged people not to contact their GP but book an appointment through the national system, although that had crashed earlier due to the number of people trying to book.

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