The public will not forget those who thought they were too important to wait their turn
IT isn’t an easy message to sell, but rolling out the Covid vaccine based simply on age will make it faster and put an end to nauseating queue jumping. The online registration for those aged 69 began on Thursday, with those aged 68 invited to register yesterday. Today it will be 67year-olds, and so on. At last, a simple process. Debates about who belongs in the respective early vaccination cohorts or who should be added to them can finally end.
Lobbying for vaccine prioritisation, some of it strongly justified, has been a fixture of the rollout since it began. Senior figures in Cabinet this week told me they were ‘relieved’ at the move to a simple age-based rollout following the revelations of queue jumping by this newspaper.
‘The same thing [queue jumping] would have happened again,’ said one Cabinet source.
Family carers and frontline gardaí, to name just two one a long list of justifiable professions, would be vaccinated first in an ideal world. I don’t envy any politician having to tell a carer they will not be bumped up the queue based on the extra risk faced because of their occupation.
POLITICALLY, it is uncomfortable for the Government, but not as uncomfortable as further instances of the rollout being unfair or slowing in pace.
There are two undeniable truths that cannot be trumped in justifying the switch.
Firstly, the HSE is already struggling to identify those at high risk with underlying medical conditions deemed to be in cohort 4 of the vaccination programme.
The lack of a universal healthcare database means people need to be identified by their respective hospitals, with GPs now working to help in the process. While it is necessary to prioritise the most vulnerable in society, it’s proving to be a cumbersome process.
If the HSE attempted to continue to rank the entire population based on factors other than age, the rollout would be slowed.
The hope among those in Government is that supply will arrive as promised in the coming weeks and the rollout will finally ‘ramp up’ to the fabled 250,000 jabs per week. Although, it is hard to believe any promises made on the rollout given the growing number of missed targets.
Getting into such granular detail is important when vaccines are scarce, but the great vaccine flood is due any day now.
The second crucial fact is that age is by far the single biggest risk factor in terms serious illness and death from Covid-19.
Therefore there really is no argument that a young healthy teacher, in a classroom behind a screen, should be vaccinated ahead of a 69-year-old. Teacher friends matching this description have described to me their embarrassment at the behaviour of their respective unions.
The reality is the new system will make the rollout quicker, get the vaccine to those most at risk first and close avenues for abuse. The pandemic has required great selfsacrifice from so many, and that’s why vaccine queue jumping cuts so deeply. We were promised the vaccine rollout, the lifeline for so many, would be fair and delivered to those who needed it most first.
Revelations by this newspaper about vaccine queue-jumping at the Beacon Hospital and through the HSE’s online booking system illustrated a side to the country that most of us must wished wasn’t true.
Regardless of medical need, you could access the vaccine based on who you knew. This, legitimately, fuelled an angry debate about vaccine prioritisation.
Those waiting patiently in line need to know the process is fair and equitable. Two investigations are currently under way into the vaccine rollout at the Beacon.
The HSE has appointed one of its former senior officials to carry out an investigation into the ‘procedures and processes’ of the rollout at the private hospital.
It is not a full audit and it will not give us a list of names of those who climbed over others to take jabs intended solely for frontline healthcare workers. HSE CEO Paul Reid confirmed this week that the Beacon were the instigators of the move and offered their hospital and staff for free.
SEPARATELY, the board of the Beacon has commissioned its own independent review. There has been little detail on what this will cover or when it will be completed.
There will be no examination of the HSE’s now defunct online portal for booking vaccine appointments for frontline healthcare workers. Mr Reid has conceded that the portal was used by some people to jump the vaccine queue, but the extent of this abuse will never be known.
There appears to be little appetite to find out. Only when the tide goes out will we be able to see who has been swimming naked.
Being fully vaccinated will come with many advantages, most notably being able to seamlessly travel internationally and perhaps attend large sporting events.
It will be interesting to note the early attendees and jet setters in the initial reopening stages, particularly those who are young and healthy.
We all hope that the collective challenges of the pandemic will fade into our distant memories as we make the slow return to normality. But some scars of the pandemic will never fully heal. The public will not forgot those who felt their sense of self-worth and entitlement merited stepping over the most vulnerable in society.