It will be one of seven to open in the UK next week.
Pop-up vaccination centres are set to open in the UK next week, with the Etihad Tennis Centre now confirmed to be one of seven to open first. Starting from Monday, the space will be used by NHS staff and volunteers to administer the vaccine – with the government aiming to vaccinate 14 million by February 15th. 1.3 million have so far received the vaccine, according to the Prime Minister.
Covid Vaccine Deployment Minister Nadhim Zahaw told Sky News ahead of the announcement: “I’m confident that as we begin to deploy and get more sites operational – I talked about the hospitals, the GPs, the community pharmacies and the national vaccination centres – so we will be at over 1,000 sites vaccinating.
“I’m confident you will see, certainly from January 4 to January 11, a real step up. So we’ve done over 1.3 million since December 8, you’re going to see a massive acceleration of that.”
Here’s the full list of locations announced today:
- Etihad Tennis Centre, Manchester
- Robertson House, Stevenage
- Centre for Life, Newcastle
- Epsom Race Course, Surrey
- Ashton Gate Stadium, Bristol
- Millennium Point, Birmingham
- Excel Centre, London
The vulnerable will be continued to be prioritised during the vaccine roll-out, with Oldham Council confirming just yesterday that they would be adding the homeless to their priority list. The new mass vaccination centres will open alongside 775 GP-led centres and 207 hospital sites that are also confirmed to open by the end of this week.
Here’s the list of who will be vaccinated during ‘Phase 1’, in order of priority:
- Care home residents and their carers
- Over 80’s and frontline workers
- Over 75’s
- Over 70’s and the clinically vulnerable
- Over 65’s
- Anyone over 16 with underlying health issues
- Over 60’s
- Over 55’s
- Over 50’s
Anyone outside of the ‘Phase 1’ priority list will need to wait until the second phase of vaccinations to receive the jab. A roll-out date for the second phase is currently TBC, and is not expected to begin until prioritised patients are fully vaccinated.