The army and extra NHS staff will be deployed across regions in the UK to help achieve Boris Johnson’s target to vaccinate more than a million people every day with booster jabs this Christmas and prevent a New Year lockdown.
In his address to the nation last night the Prime Minister announced he was rapidly speeding up the UK’s coronavirus booster jab rollout as he warned the country: ‘There is a tidal wave of Omicron coming.’
Launching what he described as the ‘Omicron Emergency Boost’, Mr Johnson said everyone over the age of 18 would now be offered their booster before the New Year and that in order to deliver the necessary jabs by the end of the year ‘we’ll need to match the NHS’s best vaccination day yet – and then beat it day after day’.
The move will now see extra nurses and healthcare staff taken off normal duties and cancel routine treatment to help the emergency operation.
The drive will also see 42 military planning teams across every region, additional vaccine sites and mobile units, an extension of opening hours for clinics so they run seven days a week and thousands of extra volunteer vaccinators trained.
