Don’t leave the booster rollout to the NHS
It is almost a year since the first Covid vaccine in the world outside of a clinical trial was administered to Margaret Keenan, a 90-yearold grandmother from Coventry. A few months ago, she received her booster jab, testament to the extraordinary success of the programme, not just here but around the globe. Almost from a standing start, science and human ingenuity seemed to have triumphed over nature’s predations. However, the arrival of a mutation that might evade the protections has once again sent epidemiologists and politicians into a spin, with new border controls, social restrictions and mask mandates reintroduced here and abroad.
Whereas it was previously imagined that to receive just one jab, let alone three, would provide adequate protection from the disease, the vaccine is no longer a pathway to the resumption of normal life. The response to the omicron variant, still assumed to cause a mild illness, casts doubt on the entire project and risks an upwelling of vaccine fatigue. Under new rules, someone with three jabs who comes into contact with someone “suspected” of contracting omicron will have to self-isolate for 10 days. This suggests an official scepticism about the effectiveness of the vaccine that is not obviously borne out by the facts.
Ministers say we don’t know enough yet and caution is essential. But we do know that a doctor who first identified the variant says the illness it causes is mild, and evidence from Israel indicates high levels of protection from existing vaccines.
Into this mix the Government has decided to supercharge the booster vaccine programme, paying GPS extra to administer the jab while allowing them to carry out fewer tasks that might be even more important to health. Doctors’ representatives have baulked at the scale of the task, warning that it would further impair the work of “an exhausted and demoralised workforce”. In which case, why is this exercise being entrusted to GPS and the NHS? That might have made sense when there were supply issues but now the most important task is delivery. This can be done through companies, should they be allowed access to the vaccines as they are with flu jabs.
Hundreds of employees could be jabbed within days without needing to wait until next February, as envisaged in Government plans. The rapid rollout of the vaccine through the task force headed by Kate Bingham showed the right sort of innovative thinking. More is required now.