Fresh call for young people to get Covid vaccine - after 700 more jabs given at weekend walk-in clinics

Rotherham NHS Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) hosted sessions last Saturday and Sunday at Rawmarsh Health Centre and Rotherham Leisure Complex as part of an national bid to get more people to take up vaccinations.

Sue Cassin, chief nurse for the Rotherham CCG, said she was surprised by the turnout and called the weekend walk-ins “a really positive success”.

She added: “Around 700 additional people received their first dose of the vaccine over the weekend thanks to these two walk-in sessions - and we saw a wide spread of people from all different age groups.

“It was great to see some people over 60, who had been hesitant to have the vaccine previously, but came along to a walk-in session to have it done.”

The chief nurse said more people had contacted the CCG since to ask if any more walk-in sessions were planned and she confirmed more were in the pipeline.

She said the CCG also aimed to look at new ways to get more young people to have the vaccine.

Ms Cassin said there was still plenty of enthusiasm for among the vaccine programme team to get the job done with flexibility around different locations.

“As the planned freedom day approaches hopefully in July, we are calling out for all over-18s to book in for their Covid vaccine,” added Ms Cassin.

“Young people need their freedoms and we need people to be as protected as possible when more things re-open ‑ the vaccine will help with this.”

As of this week, 175,000 first doses and 140,000 second doses of vaccine have been given out in Rotherham.