Covid vaccine: Hundreds of Leeds care home workers get jab

Hundreds of staff who work in care homes or social care settings in Leeds have been given the Covid-19 vaccine as the rollout of the jab continues.

A total of 222 workers received a first dose of the vaccine at a temporary centre at the Thackray Museum of Medicine next to St James's Hospital.

Care worker Helen Moorhouse said the vaccine was "really important" given she worked with vulnerable people.

One health boss said it was "fantastic" and "such a special day".

Ms Moorhouse, who works in a nursing home with frail elderly people, was one of the first care home workers in Leeds to get the vaccine on Wednesday.

She said: "It's really important because obviously I do work with vulnerable people and it's important that I get protected, so that I can protect them as well."

Across Yorkshire 47,000 direct care workers will need to be vaccinated in the coming weeks and months, according to the Skills for Care charity.

There are 600,000 people over the age of 70 - with an estimated 40,000 living in care homes, figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show.

The ONS said that a third of all Covid deaths in Yorkshire were in care homes.

Care worker Raymond Jones, who was also vaccinated earlier, said: "Anybody who doesn't want it needs to think about the parents, the relatives and the people they deal with on a daily basis, they are putting them at risk."

Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust chief executive Julian Hartley said: "It's incredibly important, it's such a special day.

"Making sure that we can address the high priority in terms of the care home workers, over 80s and so on is great and we've had such a good response and I just pay tribute to the teams that have been able to step this up with such speed and alacrity.

"It's been such a lot of planning, but here we are vaccinating people and it's fantastic."

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