Another 51,000 people were vaccinated against Covid-19 in the Liverpool City Region last week, with vaccination rates surging in Knowsley, St Helens and Sefton.
These three boroughs saw the biggest increase in the proportion of residents inoculated against the virus in the week up to March 7, according to figures released by the NHS.
St Helens has even overtaken Sefton and Wirral to become the first city region borough to vaccinate half of its residents aged over 16.
In total, 575,701 people in the city region had received at least one dose of the vaccine by March 7, amounting to 45% of over-16s in the region.
While most boroughs have now vaccinated more than 40% over their over-16s, Liverpool continues to lag slightly behind with 38.7% having had at least one jab.
The number of people vaccinated in each borough is given below, along with the percentage of people aged over 16 who have had the vaccine.
Halton - 44,774 (43.3%)
Knowsley - 55,673 (46.3%)
Liverpool - 158,934 (38.7%)
St Helens - 74,761 (50.7%)
Sefton - 112,907 (49.5%)
Wirral - 128,652 (48.8%)
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At the neighbourhood level, even more places have now vaccinated more than half their residents.
Last week, only three neighbourhoods had vaccinated half their residents, but that number has now increased to 11. Most of these are in St Helens and Sefton, with Ainsdale West, Hesketh Park, Billinge and Birkdale leading the way.
Two Wirral neighbourhoods - Gayton and Lower Heswall, and Poulton, Raby Mere and Thornton Hough - have also vaccinated more than half their residents.
But at the other end of the scale, parts of south Liverpool are still struggling to increase take-up of the vaccine.
Toxteth Park, Princes Park and Wavertree South are the only places where less than 80% of pensioners have been vaccinated, continuing a pattern seen last week.
Take up of the vaccine among pensioners in these neighbourhoods has also hardly increased over the past week, which will be a concern to local health bosses.
These three areas have the city’s largest ethnic minority populations, which could be a reason for the lower vaccination rates as people from ethnic minorities are more likely to be reluctant to have the jab.
NHS figures also show 93% of the region’s care home residents have been vaccinated against Covid-19, including 99% of care home residents in St Helens.
However, only 71.6% of care home staff in the city region have been vaccinated, with rates being particularly low in Knowsley and Liverpool where only two-thirds of staff have had a dose of the vaccine.
