U-turn on vaccine policy
THE Government has U-turned on making Covid vaccinations mandatory for health workers.
Health Secretary Sajid Javid said a driver of the move was the fact Omicron was roughly half as likely to put people in hospital as Delta.
He added: “It is not only right but responsible to revisit the balance of risks and opportunities that guided our original decision last year.” NHS bosses Matthew Taylor and Chris Hopson were “frustrated” by the 11thhour change, after a rush to meet the February 3 cut-off for one dose. Former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt feared the effect the U-turn would have on future vaccine programmes for health staff Some 77,000 unjabbed staff had faced losing their jobs if they could not be redeployed to back-office roles.