In the lead­up to the re­open­ing of Mon­day's safe zones, there has been a 50 to 70 per cent up­take in vac­ci­na­tions at cen­tres op­er­at­ed by the South­west Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty.

So said the chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of the SWRHA Dr Bri­an Ar­mour as scores of peo­ple came out for the one-shot John­son and John­son vac­ci­na­tion at the Princes Town Prom­e­nade.

Speak­ing to the me­dia, Dr Ar­mour said over 100 peo­ple re­ceived J&J vac­cines on Fri­day and with­in one hour on Sat­ur­day, more than 30 oth­ers had been vac­ci­nat­ed.

He said vac­ci­na­tions were al­so held at Ram­s­ingh’s car park in Cou­va and at the Ica­cos Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School.

Dr Ar­mour said dri­ve through vac­ci­na­tions will re­sume at the Man­nie Ramjohn Sta­di­um on Sun­day.

"We are proud of the part­ner­ships and agen­cies which have been work­ing with us. So far we have giv­en 298,000 vac­cine dos­es first and sec­ond. Out of this we have 136,000 ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed and an ex­tra 10, 000 im­mu­nized with the J&J," Dr Ar­mour said.

"We have ob­served in the last two weeks from 23rd Sep­tem­ber there has been a 50 to 70 per cent in­crease in the up­take of vac­cines."

Mean­while, Tina De­bi who came to get her vac­cine said she was hap­py to be vac­ci­nat­ed. She said she had doubts about tak­ing the vac­cine but when she saw every­one else had tak­en it, she de­cid­ed to be­come vac­ci­nat­ed.

Mean­while, coun­cil­lor for Ce­dros Shankar Teelucks­ingh said 50 res­i­dents and mi­grants were vac­ci­nat­ed with the J&J. How­ev­er he said 30 peo­ple left with­out be­ing vac­ci­nat­ed as they pre­ferred the John­son and John­son vac­cine.