Tuesday, 1 June 2021
There have been reports of half-mile long queues at Twickenham stadium, as it offered jabs to anyone over 18 in the afternoon
Up to fifteen thousand were offered yesterday, as part of efforts to tackle the Indian variant.
Radio Jackie's Luke Williams was in the queue.
The tweet asking for over 18s was sent out at 3.19pm, and twitter is the right medium to attract hordes of young people.
I got there at six. It was around seven minutes past when I got into the queue, which was half a mile long and growing fast. I long couldn't see the stadium at that point, it had snaked so far. I talked to a few people around me about how the maths didn't add up in our favour. they only intended to give out fifteen thousand jabs, and they'd given out a thousand in the first hour, and there must be a good chunk of that in the line. But this is the first chance we'd had and it wasn't worth throwing away. Plus, I asked them this question after thirty minutes of queuing.
When they finally said no more vaccines, the queue stretched past gate E, and the walk ins were due for gate A. That's not including the smaller sub queues, that felt a little like pens, that popped up just to store people away.
The staff weren't taking any nonsense, and I noted a police presence. All those disappointed people in one place could have got messy, but to everyone's credit, and indeed benefit, it didn't.
I saw people had come up from Brighton to get a jab when they heard about it. Now's only to see how they'll work around the fact that after more than a year of waiting, demand is both urgent and high.
posted by Radio Jackie News Team @ 7:07 am
