Hundreds of people queued outside Watford Town Hall today (Monday) as some "tried their luck" to get their coronavirus booster jab.
Boris Johnson announced on Sunday that the booster jab will be made available from Monday to every adult over 18 who has had a second dose of the vaccine at least three months ago amid the spread of the Omicron variant.
Pictures posted on twitter this afternoon show hundreds of people queued to get their jab at the walk in centre at the Town Hall, with a line forming all the way back to Rickmansworth Road.
Long queue for jabs / boosters at the walk in clinic at Watford Town Hall. People worried about Christmas; building immunity for holidays. Some due to have jabs next week but trying their luck following Boris Johnson’s announcement. Volunteer says ‘they’re not stopping at 1pm’. pic.twitter.com/IhVce3RAiK
— Matt Lockwood (@Matt__Lockwood) December 13, 2021
Twitter user Matt Lockwood said it was so busy that a volunteer said "they’re not stopping at 1pm" and that some people had been "trying their luck" to get a jab early.
Google maps had also showed that there was heavy traffic all the way down Hempstead Road and outside the Town Hall in Rickmansworth Road this afternoon, although it is not clear if this had been because of more people travelling to get their jab.
Whilst there are still some queues on the roads, it is not as busy as it had been.
Boris Johnson, in a pre-recorded address to the nation on Sunday evening, said Britain “must urgently reinforce our wall of vaccine protection” as he set the new deadline of jabbing everyone over 18 by the new year.
And the NHS will have to postpone some planned appointments in order to meet the target of giving every adult in England a Covid-19 booster jab by the end of the year.
Nursing leaders have expressed concern about the “scale and pace” of the vaccine programme expansion – which will aim to jab almost a million people every day – while a charity said the Government must ensure NHS cancer services are “prioritised and protected”.
The target for giving every adult a booster jab was brought forward by a month over fears of a “tidal wave of Omicron” that could cause “very many deaths”.
Mr Johnson said scientists had discovered that two doses of a vaccine is “simply not enough” to prevent the spread of the new variant and that, without a lightning speed mass booster campaign, the NHS could be overwhelmed.
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