People in Harborough urged to get vaccinated over Christmas as Covid infection rates across Leicestershire hit new record highs

People in Harborough are being exhorted to get vaccinated over Christmas as Covid infection rates across Leicestershire hit new record highs.

The new SoS is being issued today by Mike Sandys and Andy Williams amid a surge of new Omicron virus cases throughout the county as well as nationwide.

Tens of thousands of slots to get jabbed are available in Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland over the festive season.

The latest figures show that 820 people per 100,000 have got Covid in Leicestershire, 647 in Leicester and 694 in Rutland.

“Although they are below the national average of 915, they are the highest seen locally and are expected to rise,” said the NHS .

The local NHS, police, fire, ambulance services and councils have stressed the real risk of disruption to health and care services posed by rising infection rates.

They are concerned about the impact of increased hospital admissions as well as critical workers, such as nurses and carers, being unable to work because they are infected.

Mike Sandys, director of public health for Leicestershire and Rutland, said: “People coming into hospital while staff go off sick is a double whammy that we’re facing in January.

“This is fast becoming about how we continue to provide critical services to people.

“We are very concerned about the situation locally, so we’re stepping up our level of coordination across agencies to manage this,” said Mike.

“This means looking at things like redeploying staff if we need to.

“Every vaccination does its bit to help reduce pressure on our NHS.”

Andy Williams, chief executive of the Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland NHS Clinical Commissioning Groups, said: “Huge efforts are being made to offer people the protection against Covid-19 that they need as we face the highly-infectious Omicron variant.

“Locally we have jabbed 144,000 people since December 13.

“We could have administered another 46,000 but the slots, enough to cover most of the entire un-vaccinated population of the city, went unused.

“We are stepping things up,” said Andy.

“We will be vaccinating on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and beyond towards the New Year with the capacity for 40,000 more jabs.

“I’d urge people to take advantage of this and book an appointment or attend a walk-in clinic.”

You can check for bookable and walk-in jabs on your local NHS website here: https://www.leicestercityccg.nhs.uk/my-health/coronavirus-advice/coronavirus-vaccine/