I hope you are all well as we approach Christmas.
Parliament has now risen for Recess and so I am now working
in the constituency, and looking forward to taking some time off with my family
later this week.
I hope you will be able to have some time to enjoy the
festive season and also reflect on why we celebrate this special day. In the
midst of all that is currently going on it is good to focus on the good news of
the first Christmas that brought a message of peace and joy to the world.
Of course, over the past week, in response to the spread of
the new Omicron variant of the Coronavirus we have continued to massively ramp
up the COVID-19 booster vaccination programme. The vaccine booster is now
available to all adults over 18.
The response to the vaccine roll out, both from all those
involved in running the vaccine programme, and also the public take up of it,
has been nothing short of extraordinary.
As of this weekend, the daily figures for people receiving
their booster jab were up to over 900,000 people a day. Across the UK over
28million people, 50% of all adults, have now received their booster shot and
this figure continues to rise at an incredibly swift rate. Our aim is to enable
all adults of have the opportunity to receive their booster jab by the end of
the year. This is a huge challenge but it is great to see everyone pulling
together in our national effort.
Within Cornwall, at the start of this push we had to deliver
172,000 more booster jabs to reach all the adults in the Duchy. This represents
around 9,000 jabs a day.
I am working with our NHS and community pharmacies to
identify where more walk-in provision is needed and request that we get this
provision in place as soon as possible. I was pleased over the weekend to see
pop-up walk-in booster sites open in St Austell and in St Blazey, as well as a
number of local Pharmacies in Newquay and St Austell, to go along with the mass
vaccination sites that are available elsewhere in Cornwall. I will continue to
share more details of local sites on my social media as I am given the most up
to date information, and you can also find out more via NHS Kernow’s website by
going to the below link:
https://www.kernowccg.nhs.uk/your-health/coronavirus/covid-19-vaccine/
A big thank you must go, as ever to all involved in the
vaccine programme rollout, whether they be NHS staff, community pharmacy staff,
the many thousands of volunteers who are helping out, or the armed forces who
are assisting with the expansion of the programme.
On that note I would also like to thank all of those who
will be working over the festive period, not just in the continued rollout of
the vaccine programme, but also all who work in our NHS and care sectors, those
who work in retail and hospitality, our local Police and other emergency
services and our armed forces who keep us and others safe all over the world,
all year round.
However you spend your Christmas, I hope you have a good one
and I would like to take the opportunity to wish all readers a Merry Christmas
and a happy and healthy New Year for 2022.
My office will be closed from 12 noon on 23rd December and
reopen at 10am on 4th January. However, if anyone is in need or urgent help during
this time you can still contact me by emailing
steve.double.mp@parliament.uk or calling 01726 829379 and leaving a
message. I will get back to anyone requiring urgent help.
