Guy’s Hospital is celebrating a year since it gave out its first Covid-19 vaccine.
In that time the Borough hospital has given more than 775,000 jabs to over 450,000 people – the equivalent of the Den filled 22 times over.
About 13.9m doses of the vaccine have been given out in London overall – meaning around one in every eighteen jabs in the capital was given by staff at Guy’s Hospital.
The hospital’s first vaccine centre was set up on December 8, 2020 to administer a few hundred Pfizer vaccinations a day – and the trust now has six temporary centres across Guy’s Hospital and St Thomas’ Hospital.
Each centre delivers up to 1,200 vaccinations a day and between them they administer three different vaccines – Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Moderna.
If all the vials of vaccines the trust has given were lined up next to each other, they would stretch the 4km along the Thames path from St Thomas’ Hospital at Westminster Bridge to Guy’s Hospital by London Bridge.
People who say they have been jabbed at Guy’s include Boris Johnson and the Archbishop of Canterbury – and even Santa Claus.
The first person to have her vaccination at Guy’s Hospital was Lyn Wheeler.
Lyn, 82, from Bromley, said: “The vaccines gave me hope, particularly a year ago when there was desperation. Older people were being isolated from everything and it was a very hard time. We couldn’t carry on like that. We were afraid, and we had to fight back.
“I’ve had my three vaccines now – they’ve given me the confidence to go out again to see my family, go to church, see the children in the school where I work and volunteer at COVID and flu vaccination sessions – always carefully, of course.”
The government changed the vaccine rules to allow all adults to have their booster jab quicker than planned, amid fears over the rise of the Omicron variant. Ministers aim to get everyone their booster by the end of January.