Eastbourne councillor helps with step up of vaccination programme

An Eastbourne councillor has joined the step up to tackle the Omicron variant.

Josh Babarinde, who was trained as a vaccinator in February, has called for residents to come forward for their first, second or booster jab to help the country get back to normality.

The Hampden Park councillor said, “I have been doing it for months now, but really stepped it up again from last week when it was clear we needed to boost away.”

Mr Babarinde emphasised the importance that people get vaccinated.

He said, “It is critical now that bookings are open that you book in your booster, and indeed if people have not had their first or second vaccine they can still of course book in for that.

“That is how we protect our community and our economy from this virus.

“This is the way out of restrictions and into normality, but we need everyone to get vaccinated to do that.”

Mr Babarinde, who has taken on a ‘shift or two’ a week to help administer jabs, also discussed why he chose to get involved with the vaccination programme.

He said, “It was clear to me back then that the way out of the pandemic was through vaccination and so I rolled up my sleeves and trained as a vaccinator”

Mr Babarinde has been deployed at the Sovereign Harbour Community Centre and said work is ‘exhausting’ but critical.

The councillor, who has vaccinated ‘hundreds’ of residents so far, said, “It is really relentless but it needs to be. Our approach to vaccination and to protecting our society from this virus has to be relentless in order to get back to normality.”

Mr Babarinde also praised the work of South Downs Health and Care (SDHC) clinical director Dr Raj Chandarana and his team.