Professor Mike Holmes, who leads York’s mass vaccination centre at Askham Bar, says the pandemic isn’t over and we all need to remain cautious, as plans are drawn up for booster jabs

THE big news this week of course is the step four government announcement and end to legal restrictions, known by some as ‘Freedom Day’.

This isn’t how I see it. Is evident the pandemic is not over and we all need to remain cautious.

So, in York the message is clear – we’re asking people to respect and protect others and keep York kind.

Many venues, shops and businesses will continue with the hands, face, space guidance, and rightly so.

As the numbers of cases increase, it’s now more important than ever that people come and get vaccinated and get their second, very important, dose after eight weeks.

At the vaccination centre and in all other healthcare settings, we will continue with face coverings, social distancing and hand hygiene and ask all visitors to do the same.

Our walk-in clinics continue to be popular and nationally, we have now offered all adults 18 and over, their first vaccination.

The region has now vaccinated well over 1.2 million (87%) people with their first dose of the vaccine and nearly 1 million people have been fully vaccinated and ‘double-dosed’.

In North Yorkshire and Vale of York we’re seeing an increase in young people coming forward for their first dose and have vaccinated well over 64% of people aged 18 to 29 with their first dose.

I particularly want to thank all the teams who worked over the last few days in the sweltering heat.

As you can imagine, it wasn’t pleasant to wear PPE and work in these conditions and was extremely hard for those working outside too.

We even had to do a last-minute appeal for more air conditioning units at the weekend to no avail!

As we move forward, many people have been asking me how we will be dealing with the forthcoming Covid booster and flu vaccination programmes in the City.

Nimbuscare has been in discussions with public health and our GP practice members, as well as other health and care and voluntary organisations, to work out the best way to deliver this as national guidance is published.

It is likely that we will continue to deliver most of the new Covid booster vaccinations, on behalf of GP practices, from the Askham Bar Vaccination Centre.

GP practices are currently looking at how best to deliver the flu vaccinations to eligible people and will be in touch with patients shortly.

It is expected that the flu vaccine will be delivered from a variety of sites across the City. For children and young people this may be in the form of a nasal spray.

As with any important vaccination, I would urge everyone to be responsible and continue to protect themselves and their loved ones, by coming along for their vaccines, when asked.

This week, as we push out the ‘Respect, protect and Be Kind’ message across the City, I want to emphasise the ‘Be Kind’ message again.

Within GP practices we continue to face huge volumes of verbal abuse, anger and downright nastiness from patients.

We are seeing a huge surge in demand from patients, whilst at the same time are having to cope with staff off sick and large numbers of staff isolating.

I realise patients are frustrated and anxious.

We need people to know that we are doing our very best to see and treat as many patients as we possibly can, given the resources we have – so please bear that in mind.

Please also be kind and considerate to those around you.

I’m seeing more patients with mental health issues than ever before in my clinics and this is very worrying.

Yes, we have people suffering greatly from this dreadful virus, but it’s also left its mark on many of us emotionally and mentally.

Many people are struggling with their mental health as a result of the last 18 months and we need to bear this in mind too.