Anxiety among over-80s that the vaccination system may leave them out Penal stamp duty

sir – I am 87, and my wife, who is 78, has been allotted a time and place for her vaccination.

We share the same address and are registered with the same GP. I am told I am in a higher-priority category than my wife, but I am not confident that the system is entirely glitch-free.

We are asked not to contact our GP, but I hope I’ve not been forgotten. Chris Sneath

Eastbourne, East Sussex

sir – The logistics of vaccination are certainly patchy. Cambridgeshire and Peterborough have, it is reported, “negotiated” supplies of vaccine for nursery workers. But in my area of Fenland, people over 80 have yet to be offered an appointment.

Either this reflects on the competency of those managing the process or a deficiency in the system’s set-up. Let us hope that the target of February 15 does not become another unfulfilled commitment.

Peter Williman

Chatteris, Cambridgeshire sir – I have always been proud to be Welsh. I am 82 and still awaiting the vaccine, with a further delay of two to three weeks, my surgery informs me.

Mark Drakeford, the first minister of Wales, recently said on television that this “is not a race”. But it is. Many may die because of such an attitude and lack of organisation.

Carl Harris

Cardiff

sir – My 82-year-old mother, near Wrexham in North Wales, is desperate for her vaccine but has been given no indication when she might receive it.

Her GP surgery has said that it won’t be administering it. She is scared to leave the house because of the Covid risk and in case she misses a phone call from Public Health Wales offering an appointment. This spoils her only daily pleasure, 30 minutes walking her dog. Victoria Eastman

Ellesmere, Shropshire

sir – My daughter in Sussex was contacted by a schoolfriend who volunteers at a London vaccination centre, and so 50 vaccinations that might otherwise have been thrown away last Friday were given to a small group of people (me included) who dashed there just after closing time.

Whoever facilitated this should be congratulated. Initiative should be encouraged if vaccines go begging. Luci Collings

London SE27

sir – No one is really vaccinated until their second dose – ideally within the prescribed time frame which, for the Pfizer vaccine, was three to four weeks.

Now that the supply of the Pfizer vaccine may be limited for a time, with the intended shutdown of a Belgian factory, should not the vaccine now available be used to give the required second dose? All other first doses should be with the Oxford vaccine.

Otherwise there might be no Pfizer vaccine available in time for the necessary second doses.

Rod Clayton

Norwich sir – In the Seventies and Eighties, I moved house four times. The stamp duty on buying those four properties was zero. It was regarded at that time as a tax to be paid only by the rich.

By contrast, my son and his wife, on top of the large deposit to buy a modest house in London, have had to find thousands of pounds to give to the Treasury. Where is the fairness in that? Steve Pitman

Leeds, West Yorkshire

sir – My distaste for stamp duty is rooted in my experience when my wife and I moved from Exeter to north Devon to care for ageing relatives. We had to pay the chancellor (Gordon Brown) nearly £10,000 for moving from our four-bedroom house to a three-bedroom bungalow. It felt more painful as we were saving the state money through being active in the care of our family. Andrew C Pierce

Barnstaple, Devon