Teachers, police officers and shop workers might be given priority in next vaccine rollout phase

Officials are considering who should be a priority in the next phase of the vaccine rollout.

Vaccines Minister Nadhim Zahawi says they are looking into jobs that come into close contact with the public and considering if they should be given priority access. 

This means the likes of teachers, police officers and shop workers could be in the next phase of the vaccine rollout.

The decision will be made by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), and Matt Hancock has called for a national debate on prioritisation.

Mr Zahawi told Times Radio: “Teachers, police officers, shop workers, those who through no fault of their own, other than the work that they do, may come into contact with the virus at much greater volume [should be] the top of the list.”

Outlining how a decision on priority should be made, Matt Hancock said at the Downing Street press conference on Monday: “The clinical advice is to go through the top groups… and then after that it is essentially about protecting people as well as possible according to a judgment about who should come next.

“That is why we should have a debate about that.

“Ninety-nine per cent of deaths occur in the top nine groups and after that it is about protecting against transmission and getting life back to normal as soon as possible.”

Currently, the order of priority for phase one is: 

1. Care home residents and their carers
2. Those 80 and over, and frontline health and social care workers
3. Those 75 and over
4. Those 70 and over, and clinically extremely vulnerable people
5. Those 65 and over
6. People between 16-65 with underlying health conditions which put them at risk of more serious illness from COVID-19
7. Those 60 and over
8. Those 55 and over
9. Those 50 and over

A petition calling for teachers, school and childcare staff to be prioritised has now gained 470,000 signatures with some arguing it could help with schools reopening. 

The chairman of the Police Federation John Apter has called for police officers to be given the vaccine as soon as possible. 

Dorset Police have also backed the calls after two officers tested positive for Covid-19 at an anti-lockdown rally in Bournemouth.

One of the officers said: “Police officers shouldn’t be the first in line for the vaccine and we know the risks of our job, but we see vast amounts of people every day.

“If a call comes in, we have to go to it; we can’t say we won’t go to it. And we are putting ourselves, and our families at risk, every single day.”