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Senior public health consultants and unions have warned frontline workers could die unnecessarily from Covid-19 because they did not take priority in the government’s vaccine distribution plan.
The Department of Health’s interim plan for the provision of a new vaccine, which could be approved later this year and launched in 2021, prioritizes seniors alongside health and care workers, but does not include essential workers in the roles more dangerous. There was also anger that the government has yet to commit to vaccinating thousands of people working in hospitals such as cleaners, porters, security guards and patient transport drivers.
Steve Green, a security guard at the London hospital who is still struggling with the physical after-effects of the Covid contraction, said outside staff should not be barred from introducing the vaccine early. “The doctors and nurses are my friends – obviously they should be vaccinated first – but I thought that after the last time, people stopped seeing us as second class,” Green said, not his real name. “Just because there’s a different company on our paychecks – we’re still NHS at heart – why don’t they think it needs protection?”
Lola McEvoy, chief organizer of GMB workers, said outsourced hospital workers needed to know if they were in the front row for the vaccine, like directly employed NHS workers. “It is simply wrong if they face the same life risk once again as their NHS colleagues, without the same protection. We all want the vaccine to be successful, but for this implementation to work our members need to be vaccinated as a priority, ”he said.
Professor Gabriel Scally, president of epidemiology and public health at the Royal Society of Medicine, has urged the government to change its mind because lives are at stake. “We will have unnecessary deaths if we don’t change course,” he said. “This vaccine is protective and we must use it to protect those most at risk. Although the risk comes mostly from age, one cannot ignore what we should have learned from the first wave: that there are some occupations that are at considerable risk. ”
He said officials should look into the approach taken in New York, which prioritizes public-facing personnel such as transit workers and grocery workers for any vaccines.
According to an analysis of Covid deaths conducted by the Office for National Statistics, male frontline workers with low-paid manual jobs are four times more likely to die in the first wave of the virus than men in professional occupations.
Security guards are particularly at risk, with the highest mortality rate of all occupations. Cyril Hawken, a 59-year-old guard at a college residence in south London, fears he may be exposed to the virus as he waits for a vaccine to be made available to his age group. “Since the university has been reopened, we have had several positive cases,” he said. “You have to be very careful when doing your daily patrols.”
Hawken added that it was unfair for high-risk workers like him to have to wait for a vaccine. “They call us key workers but when it comes to getting a vaccine, they put us at the bottom of the ladder.”
Bus drivers are also at higher risk, with at least 30 deaths from Covid in London since March. Joe Welch, a bus driver in north London, said he personally knew five of the drivers who died from the coronavirus. “It’s pretty sad – you have to explain to families and deal with the effect on their colleagues,” she said.
Welch, 64, who got through both blocks, said drivers were worried about a second wave and deserved to be protected by a vaccine. “Our kids went out there even though they were scared – it’s just a fair reward for them to be higher on the ladder,” he said.
The Joint Vaccination and Immunization Committee, which drew up the plan for the government, said it had not yet decided whether to include outpatient hospital workers in the priority group for a vaccine. Professor Wei Shen Lim, chair of the Covid Immunization Committee, said older people and health and social workers would have priority. “This recommendation was made with the aim of preventing as many deaths as possible. The risk of death from Covid-19 increases exponentially with age. Frontline health and social workers are essential to the NHS’s work in saving lives and are also at increased risk of exposure and transmission of the virus to vulnerable patients. “
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