Sheffield LIVE: “No need to panic” as cases of Indian variant of Covid confirmed in Sheffield

People aged 34 and over can book their Covid-19 jab from Thursday, the NHS in England has said.

More than one million people aged 34 and 35 will get a text message on Thursday or Friday asking them to come forward for their Covid vaccine, NHS England said.

The vaccination programme is expected to extend to people in their early thirties “over the next few days and weeks”, it added.

Health officials have sped up the timetable to offer second jabs in a bid to ensure that those at highest risk are protected from the variant of the virus first identified in India.

At the same time, the programmes are extending to younger age groups to try and mitigate risk.

Professor Stephen Powis, national medical director for the NHS in England, said: “The success of the NHS Covid-19 vaccination programme, the biggest in history, is not by accident but down to careful planning and precision by NHS staff who have now delivered 48.5 million doses across England in less than six months.

“Getting the vaccine is the single most important step we can take to protect ourselves, our families and our communities against Covid 19, so when you’re called forward, book your appointment and join the tens of millions who have already been jabbed.”

Health and Social Care Secretary Matt Hancock said: “Our vaccination programme – the fastest and most successful in NHS history – moves forward at pace with 34 and 35-year-olds now being invited for the jab.

“This is incredible news and means we remain on track to hit our target of offering a vaccine to all adults by the end of July.

“The vaccine is our way out of the pandemic and the key to getting back to normal.

“I’m delighted that 70% of adults across the country have already been vaccinated with their first dose, and 40% with their second.

“We have one of the highest uptake rates in the world but we’ll continue to do everything we can to make sure no one is left behind. Please come forward for the jab once you get the offer – it could save your life and protect your loved ones.”

Vaccination experts have previously advised that people under the age of 40 should receive an alternative vaccine to the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab due to the link between the jab and extremely rare cases of blood clots.

This means that most under 40s will be offered the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines.

The Health Secretary is set to give a general update on Covid-19 as fears mount about the Indian variant.

Two days ago he told MPs there were more than 2,300 cases of the more transmissible strain detected in the UK.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock has been warned there could be “unrest” in Bolton if the Government brings in local lockdowns to contain the Indian variant.

David Greenhalgh, Conservative leader at Bolton Council, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We’ve been there before and they don’t work – not in a dense conurbation like Greater Manchester.

“This happened before, the spread increased because people travelled 50 yards across the county boundary to access hospitality that they can’t in their own area.”

Asked if he had told Mr Hancock there would be civil unrest, he said: “I do think there is a danger of unrest.

“There is a great deal of resentment. Bolton was… we were disproportionately affected really since July last year.

“Even when our rates were coming down, we still remained in lockdown when other areas’ rates were higher than ours, so there was a build up of resentment.

“The people of Bolton have a great spirit and they come together when times are difficult.

“But this would be a very, very difficult situation to manage I believe – if we went into a lockdown that we have personal experience of as a town, which did not work.”

Mr Greenhalgh said there was no sign yet that cases were coming under control in Bolton, adding that “our cases are still rising”.

He continued: “I think that was, to be honest, expected. We are putting all the measures in that we can at the moment.

“We have community spread, there’s no doubt about that, and we’re holding back a variant that would appear – although the evidence is still being gathered – to be a little bit more transmissible, easily transmissible.

“The majority of our cases are in very much our younger age groups – primary school, secondary school and in their 20s.

“We still haven’t got an increase in hospitalisation and severe illness, which is hugely welcome, those figures still remain low.

“We’re doing everything we can. The Government has sent in surge vaccinations, surge testing… We’re doing everything we can, but I think the next two weeks we will still see our cases rising.”

Figures for the seven days to May 14 show that Bolton continues to have the highest rate of new Covid cases per 100,000 people in England.

It had 867 new cases in the seven days – the equivalent of 301.5 cases per 100,000 people.

This is up from 150.2 in the seven days to May 7.

Blackburn with Darwen in Lancashire had the second highest rate, up from 86.2 to 131.6, with 197 new cases.

Bedford had the third highest, up from 64.6 to 128.1, with 222 new cases.

Bolton had the biggest week-on-week rise of any area in England, up from 150.2 to 301.5.

Jonathan Ashworth told Sky News on Wednesday: “Our shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds has long been calling on your programme and other programmes that we need a comprehensive border policy.

“Our borders have been about as secure as a sieve throughout this crisis and it’s why we are seeing these variants bounce at us.

“There’s probably going to be more of this as well, so we have got to work internationally to bring infection rates down and make sure the world is vaccinated.

“But we have also got to have secure borders and controls as well.”

Separate figures published by the UK’s statistics agencies show there have been 152,000 deaths registered in the UK where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate.

The Government also said that, as of 9am on Tuesday, there had been a further 2,412 lab-confirmed cases in the UK.

It brings the total to 4,450,392 after an adjustment in the way case numbers are calculated.

A total of 867 new cases of coronavirus were recorded in the seven days to May 14 – the equivalent of 301.5 cases per 100,000 people.

This is up from 150.2 the previous week and is the highest since the seven days to January 24.

Bolton continues to have the highest rate of new Covid-19 cases in the UK.

Blackburn with Darwen in Lancashire has the second highest rate, up week-on-week from 86.2 to 131.6, with 197 new cases.

Bedford has the third highest, up week-on-week from 64.6 to 128.1, with 222 new cases.

Sheffield’s director of public health Greg Fell confirmed the presence of the strain in Sheffield.

Greg Fell said it was inevitable that more cases would be on the way here but that the vaccination programme was working

He said: "Vaccination is working.

"There is no two ways about that. There is a plan to vaccinate younger people. At the moment the science sits in favour of giving older people as much protection as possible because that's the group who are most likely to be seriously ill."