People eligible for a Covid-19 booster jab are being urged to have it as soon as possible to protect themselves before meeting up with family and friends this Christmas.
It comes exactly two years after the first Covid-19 vaccine was given in Coventry since when 143 million doses have been delivered by NHS staff.
Public health officials said anyone who had not yet had the vaccine needed to come forward this weekend, giving the vaccine around two weeks to take effect before Christmas.
Pop-up clinics are being run around the country at locations including food banks, community health centres, places of worship as well as on roving buses and jab cabs, NHS England said.
Figures show that 16.5 million people have had a Covid booster, including more than seven in 10 of those who are severely immunosuppressed.
Professor Sir Stephen Powis, the NHS national medical director, had called on the public earlier this week to check if vulnerable family members had been vaccinated.
Around 6.4 million people are eligible for the booster vaccine under the list of conditions set out by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation but people are also able to self-declare if they think they should have been invited but have not had a notification or because only recently become eligible, NHS England said.
The latest figures show an uptick in Covid cases once more as well as admissions to hospital but influenza is also putting pressure on services particularly in children.
NHS chief executive Amanda Pritchard said: ‘The unparalleled success of the life-saving NHS Covid-19 vaccination programme, which began exactly two years ago when the NHS administered the first covid vaccine in the world outside a clinical trial, has been the single most important reason we have been able to get back to a pre-pandemic way of life.’
She added: ‘The health service is currently facing huge pressure from all angles – and while Covid may feel like a thing of the past – we continue to deal with thousands of covid hospitalisations as well as the resurgence of flu and other respiratory viruses.
‘Just as it was two years ago, the best thing you can do to avoid serious illness and hospitalisation is to make sure you are up to date with your Covid and flu jabs.’
