Vaccination pecking order leaves key workers exposed

I SIT, and wait. I read, and write and wait, for the liberating vaccination. No letter yet. I don’t expect any favours. This is a people’s war, not a contest of privilege.

Giving the jab to frontline heath workers is obviously a top priority. We need them to save us.

But I also hear a loud chorus of demands for special treatment – police, teachers, border staff, shop workers, bus drivers, posties, delivery drivers.

Key workers have a valid claim to move up the queue, based on heightened contact with the public. They’re more exposed to Covid-19 than this 77-year-old scribbler isolated in his rural home.

The fact that I and people like me are more likely to die if we catch it has formed the basis of the Government’s health policy since vaccines were created.

But it’s not easy to defend that strategy in the midst of a pandemic that is killing so many public service workers. If I just stay indoors as much as possible, God willing I shall escape the lethal virus.

Bus drivers and police officers have no such choice. They have to leave home to do their job, with no guarantee that they will not be exposed to danger.

Indeed, a new definition of workingclass status is: “Somebody who can’t work from home.” Boris Johnson has ruled out any change in policy until all the super-vulnerable oldies have been immunised, hopefully by mid February.

But there are disturbing reports of GPs binning vaccines because of appointment glitches. This is crazy. If deliveries permit, ministers should allow doctors to take a more flexible view of those who will get it.

I’m not a martyr, but I don’t want them to die for me.