We could have had two-tier vaccine approach which would have slowed the Covid spread
A NUMBER of groups of employees, such as police, firefighters, teachers and transport workers, have been seeking higher priority in the NHS immunisation strategy for Covid-19, believing themselves to be at increased risk of catching the disease. However, based on my understanding of information on the Government’s coronavirus website, by far the biggest single factor in determining whether someone who becomes ill with Covid-19 suffers the worst possible outcome – death – is their age, with death rates of those who are 90 or more years old being about 50 times higher than those in their 40s and 50s. In any case, I would have thought that those with a really significant health problem, such as (say) a policeman with a transplant or a teacher who was recovering from a blood cancer, would have already been immunised, as they would have fallen into category 4, along with the 70-79-year-olds.
However, police officers, teachers, lecturers and some transport workers generally work for large organisations, which have access to occupational health (OH) services.
For the past six years, I have been employed by a Uk-wide, private sector OH provider. Our 600-plus clients include government departments, local authorities, fire and rescue services, universities, utility companies and logistical organisations. For 10 years before that, I worked for an Nhs-based OH service, which in addition to looking after the health board’s employees, had a
substantial portfolio of clients in the private, public and voluntary sectors, as did many other NHS OH services. About 30 per cent of my consultant job plan involved working with non-nhs organisations. Our services included advice related to business travel, seasonal flu and other immunisations relevant to employment, so providing a Covid-19 immunisation service for our clients would have presented no problems, but for whatever reason, the Government decided to press ahead with a service organised by the NHS.
While the NHS service has quite correctly concentrated on protecting the most vulnerable first, if the OH services had been involved, this would have allowed a two-front approach to be adopted, with the OH services rolling up those who were less vulnerable to severe disease, but possibly constituted a higher risk
because, by being out and about more in the community, could act as asymptomatic spreaders. This would allow the NHS effort to concentrate on the faster immunisation of those at highest risk, giving both doses of vaccine. In turn, this would result in more rapid containment/suppression of the virus, reducing its opportunities to mutate – a win/ win situation. Since the Government has purchased sufficient supplies of vaccine to immunise the entire population of the UK four to five times over, there would be no question of competing for scare resources. Christopher W Ide, Waterfoot.
GORDON Cox (Letters, March 2) says: “The legal restrictions under which we are now living should be removed forthwith and replaced by guidance allowing people to use their own common sense.”
Anyone else spot the literally fatal flaw in his plan? Or did the endless number of reports of police having to bust parties, raves and even funerals of up to 200 attendees escape his notice?
Never underestimate the stupidity of the general public. Mark Boyle, Johnstone.