HEALTH Secretary Matt Hancock has told police officers in no uncertain terms that they will have to wait their turn to receive the Covid-19 vaccine – and that they will not be prioritised.<\/p>\n
Mr Hancock directly addressed a question from a police officer \u2013 Samantha from Lancashire \u2013 during the regular Downing Street briefing, who asked \u201cwhen are frontline police officers likely to receive the vaccine?\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite lobbying from the Police Federation, Chief Police Officers, the Met Commissioner and the College of Policing over police officers needing to have a level of priority for the vaccine to keep themselves, their families and the public safe, Mr Hancock replied that officers will not be prioritised until after groups 1-9, as deemed by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation.<\/p>\n
So they will not be eligible for the vaccine until after the first 32 million people in the country have received it.<\/p>\n
Steve Kent, Chairman of South Yorkshire Police Federation, said: \u201cThe answer given by the Health Secretary – which essentially means police officers are kept down the pecking order – is simply not good enough and unacceptable.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reason why the NHS and Social Services have rightly had the vaccine is based on the need for resilience and their exposure to patients and vulnerable members of society \u2013 and rightly so.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut yet again though the Government are blatantly ignoring the fact that our police are struggling with reduced resources and have arguably less resilience in reserve than any other public sector body AND our frontline officers frequently deal with society\u2019s most vulnerable and have to respond and support our NHS colleagues in attending medial incidents.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis represents a staggering ignorance to what police officers and staff have to do on a day to day basis in South Yorkshire and across the country. Rest assured we will keep on with this until our members get the protection they need.”<\/p>\n
In a pre-prepared statement last night \u2013 so Mr Hancock would have been aware of the question coming \u2013 police officer Samantha asked the Health Secretary: \u201cWhen are frontline police officers likely to receive the vaccine? Like paramedics they have to go into many different houses a day and there is a high risk of either taking the virus home or passing it on to one of the many elderly or vulnerable people they come into contact with on a daily basis.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Hancock replied: \u201cThank you very much Samantha. A very important question and I want to thank police colleagues who are doing so much to protect us at this time, including making sure that the rules that we have on social distancing are enforced and I\u2019m particularly grateful to the police for the work that they\u2019re doing on expanding that enforcement.<\/p>\n
\u201cDirectly answering your question, we have ensured, through the clinical advice that we\u2019ve taken, that the vaccine rollout goes through those who are most at risk first. So any police officer who is aged over 50 will be part of the initial rollout through the current groups down to what I call the JCVI cohorts 1-9, from the Joint Committee on Vaccinations and Immunisations which advises us on the clinical basis for the order.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter that we will then look at what order we go next and we\u2019ll consider, for instance, questions of people who are in professions where you might have to be in contact with more people and the impact of the vaccine on transmission and make a decision and publicise it as soon as we\u2019ve made that decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo decision has yet been made in what order we\u2019ll go after the JCVI cohorts 1-9 but we\u2019re looking very closely, including at where police officers should be in that order.\u201d<\/p>\n
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