Question reference: S5W-34547
- Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
- Date lodged: 13 January 2021
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Current status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 23 February 2021
Question
To ask the Scottish Government what consideration it has given to making police officers an immediate priority in the roll-out of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Answer
To save lives, it is essential that vaccination be given to the first priority groups as set by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), these being residents in a care home for older adults and their carers, people over the age of 80, and frontline health and social care workers.
Prioritisation by sector is not bring considered for the following reasons :
- Criticality of service is not an indication for priority vaccination because clinical risk is the overriding concern. This is influenced most greatly by age, not occupation.
- Currently there is no sectoral prioritisation of any workers other than frontline health and social care workers. This is because we don’t know if the vaccine prevents spread, but it does reduce the harm to those most at risk should they catch the virus.
- Individual police officers will be called forward for vaccination according to their position on the priority list, if they are eligible within the JCVI Cohorts regarding their age and/or underlying medical conditions (e.g. All individuals aged 16 years to 64 years with underlying health conditions which put them at higher risk of serious disease and mortality).
Decisions to prioritise one population group over another are not taken lightly, nor are they straightforward. That is why our prioritisation decisions have been, and will continue to be, guided by the independent expert advice from the JCVI.