NHS ‘denies extra jabs for surge vaccination in Blackburn’ as Delta variant becomes dominant in Britain

THE NHS has denied extra Covid-19 jabs to Blackburn with Darwen borough for surge vaccination, a media report claims, as “more transmissible” Delta variant cases continue to rise rapidly in the area.

Despite witnessing the highest infection rate, Blackburn’s repeated pleas to continue surge vaccination have been turned down by the NHS, The Guardian said, with a leading NHS official saying it was “increasingly difficult to drive uptake in the eligible cohorts” during the second week of the surge fortnight.

“I don’t believe that we are able to secure further additional supplies in the same volume as the ‘surge’ weeks in Blackburn as this is inbound supply dependent,” the newspaper quoted Jane Scattergood, the NHS official leading the Covid-19 vaccination programme rollout in the area, as saying.

More than 60 per cent of Blackburn’s adults have received at least one dose of the vaccine, which is lower than the national average of 75 per cent.

Blackburn’s director of public health, Dominic Harrison, warned the NHS in an email correspondence that failure to continue with accelerated vaccination in Blackburn could lead to a high chance of generating “avoidable mortality”.

“This risk now seems self-evident and is unfair, unjust and avoidable,” he wrote, adding that failure to accelerate vaccine protection now in Blackburn and neighbouring areas will put the local NHS hospital “at avoidable risk of being potentially overwhelmed with cases in 3-4 weeks.”

Now declared as the dominant variant in the UK, the Delta variant is rising constantly with the number of cases rose by 79 per cent over the past week to 12, 431 as northwest England continues to remain most affected, according to Public Health England.

Scientists also believe that there may also be a higher risk of hospitalisation linked to the Delta variant. Early analysis from England and Scotland suggests that people infected with the Delta variant could be twice as likely to need hospital care, PHE said, stressing that more data is needed to confirm this analysis.