ONE in five people in Southend have yet to have a single dose of the coronavirus vaccine.

Data from the Government’s coronavirus dashboard shows 80.1% of the Southend population had received at least their first jab by December 17.

And that number drops to 73.7% in terms of number of people who have had a second dose of the vaccine.

Central areas in the borough, such as Kursaal, Victoria and Southend Central have the lowest percentage of population vaccinated, with around 1 in 3 people yet to have two jabs.

It comes as new figures on the booster programme have revealed 10,000 people in Southend received a third Covid jab in the past week.

The booster jab rollout has been scaled up in recent days amid concern over the spread of the Omicron variant in the UK, with daily Covid-19 cases reaching record numbers.

But while Prime Minister Boris Johnson has ruled out bringing in new restrictions in England before Christmas, tougher rules could be in force by the New Year in a bid to protect the NHS.

Data from the UK coronavirus dashboard shows at least 12,702 people in Southend received a booster or third vaccine dose in the week ending Monday, December 20 – the latest available data.

That was up from 8,129 the previous week– a rise of 56%.

Of the latest seven days, December 20 saw the most extra jabs in arms (2,666) – the highest number since the NHS booster jab campaign was launched in mid-September.

A total of 79,482 people in Southend had received a booster or third dose by Monday – at least 48% of people aged 12 and over, based on the number of people on the National Immunisation Management Service database.

They were among the 29.9 million people across the UK to have received an extra vaccine dose as of December 20 – up from 24.1 million a week earlier.