Politically Speaking: Imran Ahmad Khan, MP for Wakefield - Welcome glimpse of future return to familiarity

I have been awestruck by how, in the face of terrible adversity, the people of Wakefield came together to support one another.

A return to familiarity is in sight. The roll out of the Oxford-AstraZeneca and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines represents our delivery from privation.

As a priority, those in care homes, frontline NHS workers, and over 80s have been able to access the vaccines. This week, those over 70 years old will begin to receive their inoculations.

As part of the inoculation strategy, the government has confirmed that four large-scale vaccination centres will be established in West Yorkshire. Large-scale vaccination centres are vital in the fight against coronavirus.

It is now a matter of preventing the virus from spreading as widely as it can, while inoculating the greatest number as quickly as possible. This strategy will save lives, ensure that we reopen our economy, and return to normal as soon as possible.

I met with the secretary of state for health and social care, Matt Hancock, on December 15, and let him know I wished Wakefield to host its own large vaccination centre. I was delighted, therefore, by the announcement that one of the four new large-scale vaccination centres will open in Wakefield on January 25 at the Spectrum Community Health CIC, Navigation Walk.

The centre will be vital in vaccinating Wakefield.

All other community vaccination centres will continue to operate, including one at St Swithun’s Community Centre in Eastmoor, within my constituency, and others outside the constituency, including at Sandal RUFC and King’s Medical Practice in Normanton.

Local GP practices are continuing to administer COVID-19 vaccines.

Recently, we have learned of new variants of COVID-19 from across the globe. These strains reportedly have higher infectivity rates. With these variants posing a threat, it is crucial that the rollout of the vaccine takes place as swiftly as possible.

The government must set ever more ambitious objectives, and do all they must to capture them – whether that be creating more large scale vaccination sites, funding vaccine companies to produce millions more doses, or recruiting more of the public to join our ‘Jab Army’.

We must employ a war-like effort to defeat this invisible enemy.

The government has committed £93 million last year to accelerate the construction of a new vaccination super-factory, the Vaccines Manufacturing Innovation Centre, in Oxfordshire.

The facility will have the ability to produce 70 million doses of an emergency vaccine in four to five months should we require one to combat new strains. Whilst the inoculation campaign continues, we must remain diligent in following all of the counter-COVID measures.

Hopefully, this is the final stretch, but we cannot afford to ignore the rules.

Graph: Shows total no of Covid-19 vaccination doses administered (counted as a single dose, may not equal total no of people vaccinated.