Covid-19 jab County roll-out plans can begin next month
AMOBILISATION plan of a Covid-19 vaccine in Gloucestershire will start from next month, with over-80s receiving it first, according to a council director.
Margaret Wilcox, director of adult social care at Gloucestershire County Council, told councillors this week about the plan to prepare for the vaccine, which pharmaceutical company Pfizer said offers 90 per cent protection from the coronavirus after a major trial.
She said the national target is for the vaccine to go to the over-80s before anyone else, adding Gloucestershire has a plan to mobilise a vaccine programme from December 1.
The vaccine, developed by Pfizer and Biontech, had been tested on 43,500 people in six countries and no safety concerns have been raised.
Sarah Scott, the county’s public health director, said in a council meeting having a vaccine available by Christmas would be “fantastic”, but warned councillors it would “take a considerable amount of time to roll it out to the population” and cases will still arise next year.
Ms Wilcox told the county council’s adult social care and communities scrutiny committee meeting there would be “strict” monitoring to “make sure the right people get the vaccine at the right time”.
She said: “Gloucestershire has a plan to be able to mobilise the vaccination programme from December 1.
“The national target would be to do over-80s first and it will be quite strictly monitored to make sure the right people get it at the right time.
“The problem at the moment is the vaccine has not been validated, so it does not have a licence. But we will wait and see.”
Ms Scott said in the meeting that “we will still have to keep abiding by the guidance to keep ourselves safe” while the vaccine is being rolled out.
She said: “There are a number of different vaccines in the running at the moment. Clearly we had the announcement yesterday, which was really positive about this 90 per cent success rate.
“But the Government is trying to cover all bases by considering the frontrunners of all the vaccines.
“To do this at a mass population level across the country is incredibly complicated from a logistical perspective, which is why the plan is having to be quite flexible. If we do get a vaccine before Christmas, that would be fantastic but it is just one thing available to us.
“We will not get it at once, it will take a considerable amount of time to roll it out to the population. We will still be seeing cases throughout next year and we will still have to keep abiding by the guidance to keep ourselves safe.
“I would not want people to get some false reassurance about the fact we might be running out of vaccines around Christmas, but it is brilliant news but it will take quite a lot of time to get to the population.”
Councillor Andrew Gravells (C, Abbey) said: “Reading in the papers there are 10 or 12 different categories you have to go through before they exhaust all of the population.
“I went down that list to see where I fit in because of advanced age, and people who are getting on does not automatically mean they are anywhere near the top or if they have had preexisting conditions.
“I do hope people will not run away with the idea that it means ‘it is OK now because we have got a vaccine, it does not really matter anymore’.
“It does matter and people should not get complacent because of the positive publicity of the vaccine in the last 24 hours.”