Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of prioritising frontline police officers for receipt of the covid-19 vaccine.
For phase two of the COVID 19 vaccination programme, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation published its interim advice on 26 February setting out that the most effective way to minimise hospitalisations and deaths is to continue to prioritise people by age, and not occupation. This is because age is assessed to be the strongest factor linked to mortality, morbidity and hospitalisations. Therefore, police officers will not be prioritised based on their occupation.