Omicron now in Notts hospitals as new vaccine sites set up to deliver booster jabs
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Health officials announced the news as the NHS Nottinghamshire clinical commissioning group made a call to the public to book their booster jabs on the run up to New Year.
Three new walk-in vaccination sites have been set up to deliver more booster jabs, with each aiming to deliver up to 1,000 jabs a day.
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Hide AdIt is believed the booster jab is the best defence against the new variant, which was first detected in South Africa and is sweeping across the country.
Amanda Sullivan, from the CCG, said there is still ‘a relatively high’ number of patients battling coronavirus in Nottinghamshire’s hospitals.
A small number of them have the new variant, she said.
From December 14, a total of 176 hospital beds were occupied by Covid patients – 24 of which were in critical care.
Variant
She said Omicron will rapidly become ‘the variant that is causing people to go into hospital’.
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Hide AdHowever, true figures are difficult to understand, because it takes time to go through full identification of the variant, she said.
She said: “We do believe we have got a small number in our hospital, similar to other areas.
“The NHS is responding with a huge drive to vaccinate the public over the next few weeks. This is a heroic effort by NHS staff and partners.
“Our existing sites have significantly extended their opening times and the amount of people that can go through. Overall, we have tripled our capacity to do jabs until the end of the year.
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Hide Ad“We are opening three new walk-in vaccine sites – open from Monday. They will add to the more than 50 vaccination sites we currently have.
“In addition to that, more than 51,000 additional bookable appointments have gone live up to New Year’s Eve and more slots are being added each day.”
The new sites are in Carlton, Nottingham and Newark, and add to the existing sites, including King’s Mill Hospital, Sutton, and Mansfield Vaccination Centre.
Ms Sullivan said: “There is plenty of capacity and appointments we just need people to come forward and get protected. It will be our best defence this winter.”