HALF of the people in Wiltshire who are eligible for a booster dose of the coronavirus vaccine have had one - but 19,000 more needed to be jabbed each day before the new year.

The government's new target to offer a top-up injection to every adult before 2022 arrives prompted the area's health authorities to accelerate their efforts to protect the population.

Before Sunday, the region's Clinical Commissioning Group aimed to give 6,500 vaccinations a day in the county - now they need to triple that and immunise 139,000 patients a week.

HOW TO HELP THE UNPROTECTED

There are 95,000 eligible people in Swindon who have not yet had the third dose, but Great Western Hospital saw more than 500 people visit the newly-reopened vaccination site on Thursday and the Steam Museum can now see up to 5,000 people a day.

More space has been made available inside the historic venue and the requirement to sit and wait for 15 minutes post-jab before leaving the building is no longer in effect.

Most people can wait in their car instead now, although those who have had reactions to previous doses will still need to stay in the hall for five minutes as a precaution.

The CCG's head of nursing, Gill May, issued a plea for volunteers and staff to help out at the Highworth, Lawns and Commercial Road community pharmacies, and urged pregnant women and health and social care staff to book their booster as soon as possible.

A SUDDEN STEP UP

Speaking about the sudden step up the CCG had to deliver at short notice this week, she added: "It must be something in the blood, if you work in the public sector, because we constantly text in the day and we had a little bit of a heads-up at lunchtime about a 2pm briefing, so we straight away started book meetings with our primary care colleagues.

"Everybody just went 'here we go again, let's crack on'. There's something about giving a time limit - when you can see an end date - you can mobilise quickly..

"Moderna and Pfizer are very fragile vaccines so you don't just get a lorry to transport them, they need cold chain and correct storage, so on Sunday night we started planning the logistics of delivering the vaccine and got going Monday.

"Many of the people who worked with us during the spring and summer have come back, the military are helping on larger sites, it's all hands on deck and I'll be helping out as well.

"You don't need to be a clinician to vaccinate, you can be trained to do it. People want us to support us again."

The Covid-19 vaccination booster programme has been accelerated, with everyone aged 18 and over able to book a booster if it has been more than three months since their second jab.

THE LATEST FIGURES

Around 200,000 people in Wiltshire still need to have their first or second dose and appointments for these vaccinations can be booked as well. In the last week, 50 to 60 people in the wider region have had their first dose each day.

Data from the UK coronavirus dashboard shows at least 2,944 people in Swindon received a booster or third vaccine dose on December 13 and 14 – the latest available data.

That was up from 2,324 over the same two days last week.

It means 73,993 people in Swindon had received a booster or third dose by December 14 – at least 35 per cent of people aged 12 and over, based on the number of people on the National Immunisation Management Service database.

Around 906,900 people across England received an extra dose over Monday and Tuesday, the figures show. Around 200,000 people in the wider region still need their first or second dose - those can be booked as well.

In the UK, more than 40 per cent of adults have already had all three doses.

In Swindon, 83.1 per cent of the population has had one dose, 76.7 per cent have had two doses, and 45.7 per cent have had all three doses.

Vaccinations and boosters can be booked on the NHS website, which has seen long queues

Gill May added: "We've been under the kosh a bit with this queueing business but we heard about this at the same time as the rest of the public did on Sunday.

"We are putting more appointments on every couple of hours, please keep trying, please do not think you can just walk in, please book."

Around the CCG's region, 60,000 vaccines will be given out across the weekend and yesterday.

Speaking at a Downing Street press conference on Wednesday night, Boris Johnson said it is “absolutely vital” that everyone gets a booster jab to tackle the Omicron variant of coronavirus.

He warned that the wave of the new variant “continues to roll in” across the UK, and said that in some areas the doubling rate was now under two days.

HEALTH EXPERTS' ADVICE

England’s chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty added that “records will be broken a lot” over the coming weeks.

“What we’ve got is two epidemics on top of one another – an existing Delta epidemic, roughly flat, and a very rapidly-growing Omicron epidemic on top of it,” he said.

The NHS national booking system opened up to all over 18s in England on Wednesday as the health service ramped up its vaccination programme.

Though booster jabs are available for eligible people who had their second dose at least three months ago, adults can now book in their top-up dose after just two months.

Third primary doses are already offered to people with severely weakened immune systems.

Dr Emily Lawson, head of the NHS Covid-19 vaccination programme in England, said: “The NHS Covid-19 vaccination programme is once again pulling out all the stops to protect the country from this cruel virus.

“NHS staff are working flat out to set up more sites and put on extra appointments.

“This is by far the most complex but critical phase of the biggest and most successful vaccination drive and so with latest data showing that the booster is our best hope of protecting people against the new variant, it is vital people come forward as soon as possible.”