Covid vaccine: Priti Patel ‘working to get jabs to frontline roles’
Priti Patel #PritiPatel
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]]> Ministers are working to ensure police and other front-line workers are moved up the priority list for the Covid vaccine, the home secretary has said.
Priti Patel told the BBC there was “a lot of work taking place in government right now” on the issue.
The committee advising the government on vaccines has also said it will consider factors like exposure risk and occupation in the rollout’s next phase.
The most vulnerable are being prioritised for the vaccine first.
The government is aiming to give everyone in the top four priority groups a first dose by mid-February.
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Asked whether she wanted to see police officers “bumped up the queue” for the vaccine, Ms Patel told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “It’s both police, fire and other front-line workers. And the health secretary and I are working to absolutely try and make that happen.
“This isn’t just something we are thinking about. There is a lot of work taking place in government right now.
“If the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation [JCVI] says that is a possibility, we can make it happen. We have the supply, we have the logistical plans in place, we will absolutely work to make that happen.”
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]]> Who’s in the top four priority groups?
Ms Patel added that Health Secretary Matt Hancock was “supporting all our efforts across government on this” and she was talking to police partners, including the National Police Chiefs Council and the Met Police Commissioner, about getting officers “ready to take the vaccine when that comes”.
The deputy chair of the JCVI, which advises the government, said phase two of the rollout would continue to work down the priority list through the over-50s.
However, Prof Anthony Harnden told BBC Radio 5 Live phase two would also concentrate on people who are potentially at risk of being exposed to the virus, such as teachers and police officers, as well as “those that are important to keep the economy running”.
“There are a lot of factors in phase two which we’ll be looking at in depth,” he added.
Asked when phase two would begin, he said: “We haven’t put a timescale on it, but we will be looking at this over the next few weeks.”
It comes after Met Police Commissioner, Dame Cressida Dick, said she was “baffled” about why front-line police officers were not higher up the priority list to receive the vaccine.
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