CORONAVIRUS: JVT administers vaccinations to players from his beloved Boston United during shift at hub

And he took on the job of administering injections to some of the players from his beloved Boston United Football Club.

Professor Van Tam, who has become widely known as JVT thanks to his many appearances on the Government’s briefings, worked a shift at the town’s mass vaccination centre, the Princess Royal Sports Arena.

His visit came during a county-wide ‘big weekend’ of vaccine-promoting activity as a big final push starts to get as many people as possible vaccinated in Lincolnshire.

That programme includes walk-in centres at various locations across the county, including the PRSA, on Saturday and Sunday.

Prof Van Tam said today: “When we got that first patient vaccinated in the UK, and the vaccine supplies were starting to flow, and we knew those vaccines were going to be highly effective, for me, it had been a difficult game to that point.”

Speaking to BBC Radio Lincs, he went on with the football theme: “We’d been on the back foot, we were taking a bit of a battering, and suddenly we score, it’s the first goal in the back of the net.

“Now you can see that the vaccine uptake has been really high in those older groups, its still pretty high as we are coming down the ages, and the enthusiasm for the vaccine programme is continuing with the British public.

“So to my mind, we are now just scoring at will, and to quote the old football song we sing on the terraces, ‘we’ll score when we want’.

“It feels like that at the moment, that we’ve got this game completely under control but its still only the 72nd minute; we’ve got to manage the game, make sure there are no slip ups, finish it off and get the three points.

“That puts us into a top league position, and it’s then ours to lose after that.”