March 19, 2021 10.30 am This story is over 36 months old

Over half Lincolnshire adults vaccinated against COVID-19

Don’t get complacent though, say health bosses
| Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite

More than half of eligible adults in Lincolnshire have now been given their first dose of COVID-19 vaccination.

The latest data showed that 321,832 of Lincolnshire’s estimated 640,000 people aged over 18 have been vaccinated.

However, as Paris faces a third lockdown, there is a warning to Lincolnshire residents not to get too complacent.

Lincolnshire County Council’s director of public health Derek Ward said he latest figures were “fantastic”.

It comes as Lincolnshire’s infection rate sits around 85 per 100,000 population, compared to England’s 60, with nearly 130,000 tests having now been carried out.

However, he said the prospect of people getting laid back about the numbers was an “ongoing concern”.

“You’ve just got to look at Paris, which is not that far away and they’re going into a third lockdown because they’ve seen a big increase in infection rates.”

He noted key differences between the UK and France, including that the UK was still in lockdown, but said people should not get lax because of the high number of vaccines.

“It’s really important that we remember we’re still in a stay-at-home lockdown.

“I know you know everybody’s sick and tired of it but if we want to avoid an increase in our cases let’s not make any mistake here, if everybody who goes out forgets the rules we will see a big increase in our cases.

“It’s great that we’ve got half of our population covered, but that means half aren’t and it won’t take a lot for our rates to start shooting up as a country or as a county.”

Reacting to Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s press conference on Thursday, Professor Ward said he had never thought the allegations of the vaccine causing blood clots was an issue.

In terms of supply, he added: “If the Prime Minister says we’re on track, I’ve got no reason to think otherwise.”

Meanwhile, churches and pubs could be turned into collection sites for coronavirus home testing kits as the focus switches more to detecting asymptomatic cases. Read more.