Pippa Nightingale, Chief Nursing Officer for Chelsea and Westminster NHS Foundation Trust, has been the driving force behind all three vaccination pop-ups held at Stamford Bridge and she explained why the jabs, particularly the booster, are so important in response to the new Omicron variant.
‘We’re aiming to vaccinate 10,000 people to keep this area and this population safe,’ she said. ‘What’s really important now is that everybody needs three vaccines to protect themselves against the new variant.
‘It’s far more transmissible, far more contagious and it’s needing three vaccines, so everybody needs to come forward. We have 26 different pop-ups across north-west London today and another at Wembley tomorrow.
‘The queues have been quite large outside but everyone is in good spirits and doing the right thing by coming forward and spending time to get their vaccine to protect their friends, family and the wider population.
‘Chelsea are such good friends to us, such good supporters of the vaccine programme and the hospital at Chelsea and Westminster. You need big spaces at venues like this and areas where people can queue safely so we’re so grateful for the club’s support once again.’