The sites include football stadiums and a horse racing
course and are located in cities including Bristol, London, Newcastle and
Manchester.
They are to vaccinate thousands per week and several more
sites are expected to follow, according to the National Health Service (NHS) in
England.
"I feel very relieved," said Moira Edwards, 88,
after receiving her first vaccination at Epsom Downs Racecourse, south of
London, which is more famous for the Derby.
"I feel this is the way back. I can't understand
anybody not wanting to have it," she added.
The mainly elderly recipients of the jab, some of whom used
walkers, sticks or were pushed in wheelchairs to get to the centre, were given
"I've had my COVID vaccination" stickers.
Hospitals and pharmacies are set to begin offering the
vaccine later this week, with the government hoping to have doses available for
12 million of England's 56 million population by mid-February.
A further three million are being targeted by the same date
in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Priority is being given to the elderly, care home residents
and workers, the clinically extremely vulnerable, and health and social care
staff.
Some 2.4 million people have already been vaccinated across
the UK since the roll-out began of the Pfizer-BioNTech jab on December 8,
according to vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi.
Britain has since approved the Oxford-AstraZeneca and
Moderna jabs. The government has drafted in logistics experts from the army to
help in the inoculation drive.
- 'Worst weeks' -
Britain is grappling with its worst outbreak of the disease
since it hit the country early last year.
The record case rates and daily death toll are being blamed
on a new, more transmissible strain, which has piled pressure on the NHS,
leading to warnings of shortages of critical care beds.
The state-run NHS risks being overwhelmed and the country is
in its third lockdown until at least mid-February, with predictions the
restrictions could last even longer.
In Northern Ireland, health chiefs said the province's
hospitals were under intense pressure, and two health trusts had to draft in
off-duty staff to alleviate pressure due the spike in cases.
"The next few weeks are going to be the worst weeks of
this pandemic in terms of numbers into the NHS," England's chief medical
officer Chris Whitty told BBC television on Monday.
"What we need to do, before the vaccines have had their
effect... is we need to really double down" on observing lockdown
measures, he added.
Britain on Saturday said it had recorded over three million
coronavirus cases since the pandemic began last year.
On Friday, it reported a record 1,325 deaths over a 24-hour
period of people who tested positive for the virus, with fears that the
fatalities could remain consistently high for weeks.
The full death toll now stands at more than 80,000, the
highest in Europe.
At Leatherhead, near Epsom, bodies were being stored in a
temporary 1,400-capacity mortuary because there was no space at local hospitals.
The local council said 170 bodies, more than half of which
had been COVID fatalities, were being held at the makeshift facility, but the
county would be in "real difficulty" if numbers rose further.
Zahawi urged the public to follow the lockdown rules, which
include school closures, that some have criticised for not being strict enough.
"In supermarkets, we need to make sure people actually
wear masks and follow the one-way system rule," he told Sky News.
"We don't want to go any tougher because this is a
pretty tough lockdown, but what we need is people to behave as if they've got
the virus so we can bring this virus under control whilst we vaccinate."
AFP