Plan to continue roll-out of Covid vaccine by age rather than prioritize key workers ‘makes sense’

Plans to continue rolling out the Covid-19 vaccine by age rather than prioritize front-line workers ‘make sense’, a former Government scientific adviser said today.

Professor Sir Mark Walport, a senior scientific adviser to the government, called for the strategy to maximize vaccinations on the basis of the most vulnerable.

It comes as a torment exploded on Friday after the Government confirmed that police officers and teachers would not be put on the priority list once the NHS has made its way through 32million people in the top nine organizations.

‘Spreading out is going to be as efficient as it has been through the centuries,’ Sir Mark told BBC Breakfast. ‘Of course, there will be a lot of teachers, a lot of police, who are in the 40-50 age group and of course who have already been vaccinated. So it makes sense.

‘It is still true that the majority of vulnerabilities, including in those multi-faceted professions, are still with the former members of these joint ventures, and so This is a strategy that increases the number of vaccines and makes them the most vulnerable. ‘

He said: ‘Age-related transmission corresponds to where people get the worst disease and are at greater risk of dying.’

More than 18.7 million people in the UK have received at least one dose of Covid vaccine and Boris Johnson said it aims to reach everyone in the nine main priority groups by 15 April.

Achieving this will mean that half of Britain’s population – and an organization that accounts for almost all of Covid’s deaths – has been vaccinated.

Ministers announced yesterday that they would continue the age-based approach to vaccine distribution recommended by leading scientists, paving the way for everyone in their forties to be included. in April before the release reaches all remaining adults.

But the police and teaching unions were upset that they were ignored in the next phase of the inoculation campaign.

Metropolitan Police Federation leader Ken Marsh opposed the ‘absurd’ plan, saying it was ‘utterly disgraceful’ and arguing that health officials are not ‘doing us any harm’.

The national chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales, John Apter, said the decision was ‘hopeless’.

He told Times Radio: ‘The rug feels like it has been pulled from us. He feels very ashamed. My colleagues feel let down.

‘I feel that the Secretary of State has let us down. I understand the reasons and have had many discussions with the Secretary of State. I always said that we have a helpful relationship. That doesn’t mean we will always agree. ‘

Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Directors, also attacked the news, telling the BBC that teachers’ priority would be to provide reassurance and ‘reduce anxiety about education due to staff absenteeism’. as a result of Covid ‘.

He said no further development of locking measures would have taken place if the first phase of school reopening had not been successful.

Mr Barton said: ‘What we don’t want to do is get into a kind of arms race in terms of whether my job is more likely to continue to die than you – that’s not I say.

‘I would just go back to my point – it’s a national moment on which many depend.

‘You talked earlier about festivals, etc, happening in the summer – nothing is going to happen, including sales, if we don’t get this first level right. ‘

Neil Leitch, Chief Executive of the Early Years Alliance (EYA), accused the Government of being ‘lazy’ in its decision not to prioritize key workers.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock defended plans for the next phase of the UK vaccination program by arguing on Friday that this was the ‘quickest and simplest way to get the jobs done’.

He said it was the view of the Government and its advisers that ‘the right thing to do, the moral thing to do, is to make sure we save the most lives’.

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization (JCVI) has advised that age – order vaccination is the fastest way to cut deaths, with age remaining a major risk for serious illness and death from Covid – 19.

This means that phase two of the rollout of the vaccine, which is due to start in April, will start with people aged 40 to 49 before moving on to younger age groups.

Mr Hancock told a briefing on Downing Street that the JCVI had looked at clinical evidence on who is at risk of death and also how quickly a job would get into people’s arms.

Asked specifically why teachers are not being prioritized, he said data showed ‘thankfully teachers are less likely to catch Covid than any other member of the population who goes to work ‘.

It would be difficult to try to put together a scheme that prioritises a professional body over another organization and we would not have done what we asked the JCVI to do, and I think it is that’s the right thing to do to make sure we reduce the number of deaths by using the vaccine, ‘he said.

England’s deputy chief medical officer, Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, said other jobs were at higher risk than teaching, including people working in catering in addition to ‘ metalworking and machinery, food, beverage and tobacco process operators, cooks, taxis and drivers’ cabs.

He said there were ‘a number of hot-burning areas in the UK’, including in the center of the country and extending up to the west coast of England.

Professor Van-Tam urged those who received the vaccine to abide by the rules, urging the public: ‘Don’t shipwreck this now.

‘It’s too early to rest,’ he said. ‘Just keep in control and just keep going for a few more months.’

It comes as new data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows that around one in 145 people in private banks in England had Covid-19 between 13 February and 19, down from about one in 115 the previous week.

At the same time, the value of coronavirus R, which measures the rate of spread of the virus, remains unchanged at between 0.6 and 0.9 across the UK.