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Bristol hotels offered as possible Covid-19 vaccination centres
Bristol hoteliers are offering their premises as potential vaccination sites as part of the mammoth effort to protect people from coronavirus.
The majority of hotels in the city have been forced to close their doors once more due to lockdown restrictions and, having invested in making their buildings Covid-safe, bosses say they would make ideal venues to help speed up the mass vaccination process.
It follows a similar offer from Scottish craft brewing chain BrewDog, which is reportedly in talks with the government about the possibility of using its bars as vaccination centres.
is needed now More than ever
Ashton Gate Stadium has just been confirmed as one of seven ‘super-vaccination centres’ due to open early next week, joining almost 1,000 smaller sites, such as GPs, as the country’s biggest ever vaccination programme gets underway.
Tens of thousands of people every week could receive Covid-19 vaccines at the stadium, but with the entire population to get through, the chair of Bristol Hoteliers Association is keen to see current efforts speeded up as restrictions continue to devastate the hospitality industry.
“We know that the focus is on these vaccines, with the government trying to vaccinate as many people as possible by March,” said Raphael Herzog, chair of the Bristol Hoteliers Association.
“But two million people per week is not enough to get us out of this crisis before June.
“Why doesn’t the government use hotels to vaccinate people? We can be trained to do this, and it would help to significantly speed up the process, which is in the best interests of everyone.”
Raphael Herzog says the government should consider using hotels as vaccination centres – photo courtesy of Empica
Responding to the offer from the Bristol Hoteliers Association, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has said it is “hugely grateful for all offers of support and assistance”.
A spokesperson said: “This is a huge national effort and the NHS is putting into practice the decades of experience it has spent delivering large scale vaccination programmes, and it has already vaccinated over 1.3 million people nationwide.”
The government says it is working closely with the NHS to put plans in place to distribute the vaccine, including drafting in military planning teams to help coordinate efforts at a regional and national level.
Bristol24/7 has asked DHSC if it will consider the offer to use hotels as vaccination centres but is yet to receive a response.
Main photo by Martin Booth
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