THE NHS has revealed how many people have had the coronavirus vaccine in Herefordshire and Worcestershire – and the counties are amongst the best in the country.

A total of 78,940 doses of the Covid-19 jab have been given in the two counties as of January 17.

Some 39,872 of those were as a first dose to people aged under 80, and 37,609 to the over-80s.

The NHS England figures also show 591 under-80s have had their second dose, along with 868 over-80s.

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Provisional figures from NHS England show the number of first doses broken down by what are called ‘STPs’ (sustainability and transformational partnerships), each of which contains a number of local authorities, NHS trusts and clinical commissioning groups.

There are 42 STPs covering the whole of England, and figures show that up to January 17 Gloucestershire STP had the highest proportion of people aged 80 and over who had received their first vaccine dose (85 per cent), followed by Northamptonshire (78 per cent) and Herefordshire and Worcestershire (76 per cent).

The STPs with the lowest proportions were Suffolk and North East Essex (36 per cent) and Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Health and Care (43 per cent).

Simon Trickett, chief executive of NHS Herefordshire and Worcestershire clinical commissioning group said: “I’m delighted that nearly 80 per cent of our over-80s in Herefordshire and Worcestershire have already had their jab.

"Thanks to the incredible work by the teams responsible for planning and delivering the vaccine, we currently have the highest vaccination rate across the Midlands region.

"Over the past few months, we’ve seen the very best of the local health and care system, with everyone working together as a single team and everyone playing their part.

"The data released today is a fantastic illustration of how successful that work has been through this initial phase of the vaccination programme”.

“Reaching those remaining residents remains our highest priority over the coming weeks, as well as continuing to offer the vaccine to those over 70, people in care homes and our health and social care workers.

"We’ve still a long way to go, but with even more vaccination sites coming online soon we’ll continue to make rapid progress in our fight against this virus.

"In the meantime, I want to thank everyone for the time, effort and patience they have put in to keep themselves and others safe.”

West Worcestershire MP Harriett Baldwin has praised health chiefs and local health teams and GPs who are rolling out vaccines to vulnerable groups and essential health and care workers at a speed that offers hope of a release of lockdown in the near future.

The team plans to expand capability with the opening of two major vaccination centres in Bromsgrove and at the Three Counties Showground in the coming weeks.

Harriett Baldwin said: “I receive regular briefings on the great progress that we are making across the two counties and this is tribute to the efforts of GP and medical practitioners who are taking on this immense challenge to get our highly vulnerable groups vaccinated quickly and efficiently.

“It has been a well-planned exercise and we are ready to scale up to do even more jabs in the coming weeks as we look to get all the most vulnerable people protected.

“I know that the vaccines task force has done a superb job of buying enough vaccine for everyone and that three vaccines have now been approved. At the moment the only constraint is vaccine supply and I’ve encouraged local health chiefs to be ready to scale up further for more supply.

“The sooner we get the jabs into peoples’ arms the quicker we can get children back into school and start to re-open the economy.

“This is welcome news to share but I hope that we are able to build on this great start and get many more people protected as soon as possible.”