DISCUSSIONS are ongoing to create a mass-vaccination centre in North Cumbria, according to the county's top health official.

Currently, anyone in the area who wishes to receive the coronavirus jab at one of the country's mass-vaccination centres must either travel to south Cumbria or to Newcastle - around an hours drive on either option.

However, Cumbria County Council's Director of Public Health, Colin Cox, stressed that while talks are ongoing, any site is still some time away.

He said: "If people are very keen to get the vaccine as quick as possible, if they're invited to a mass vaccination centre they should go and do that.

"If they just wait they will be invited to by their local primary care centre, and that will be an opportunity to get it closer to home.

"There is discussions going on about opening a couple of mass vaccination centres in the north, but it's not imminent, it will take weeks."

Mr Cox was also pleased with the progress that is being made in Cumbria's vaccination programme so far.

A huge number of adults in the county have already received their jab in a relatively short amount of time.

He continued: "The vaccination programme is going well. There's more than 150,000 people who have had the vaccine, which is around 40 per cent of the adult population, which is just remarkable.

"It's an incredible pace, it's absolutely phenomenal work by the NHS in a short space of time."

Despite the good news around vaccines, Mr Cox was keen to stress infection rates are still high.

He added: "We must all recognise that we still have high infection rates, well above those of last summer, and we cannot just assume that infections will continue to fall.

“They will only fall if we keep following the guidance and don’t act as if lockdown has already been lifted. We all must keep going.”