'TEN per cent' of Cheshire East residents have 'already' had their first Covid-19 vaccination dose, according to council leader Sam Corcoran.

"The vaccine programme is going very well. Hopefully all over 80s will be vaccinated by the end of January — this is a challenging target but it looks likely to be met," the Labour leader said.

He added: "I estimate that already, 10 per cent of the population of Cheshire East have been vaccinated.

"The vaccination programme is a huge task that will take months. I would also appeal to people not to demand details when particular groups will be vaccinated or why the vaccination centres are in some towns and not others.

"The NHS is under huge pressure, the administrators as well as staff."

Cllr Corcoran made his comments via his daily Twitter update on the borough's response to Covid-19, and went on to urge residents to wait for the NHS to contact them when their time comes to get jabbed.

Cheshire East's population, according to 2019 Office for National Statistics estimates, is 380,694.

Should Cllr Corcoran's forecast be correct, it means around 38,000 residents have had their jab.

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His comments come following Cheshire health chiefs indicated they were open to the possibility of a mass vaccination centre in the county, much like those in St Helens and Manchester.

NHS Cheshire clinical commissioning group (CCG), the body responsible for organising the county's vaccine roll-out, Director of Strategy and Partnerships Tracey Cole said the organisation was 'looking at all the options' in terms of increasing capacity at a CCG board meeting yesterday (January 21).

She told the board: "We are looking at all the options. What is the best way to provide this vaccine across Cheshire is one that fits with our population.

"We have not ruled that out… There are further discussions today with partners with what those options are. If we need those [mass] sites we will put forward to have them."

NHS England data shows that 201,220 Covid-19 vaccine doses have been administered in Cheshire and Merseyside.