It’s a serious situation we’re in. Rising infection rates, rising hospitalisation rates, and suddenly rising death rates. And what we want to see and have pressed the government to do is to demonstrate their plan for dealing with this ahead of the winter situation.
The NHS is under pressure.
So, things that could have been done – which the prime minister abandoned – like mask wearing indoors like we do in Wales, for example, and extra ventilation support for businesses.
The booster programme needs a real push and those school children who are eligible for a vaccine. We need to get the rate of that right up. We were struck yesterday that there was an element of complacency in the press conference from the health secretary.
More needs to be done, it needs to be done now. That’s the advice to the government, and it is frustrating and disappointing they don’t seem to want to take that advice.
It doesn’t seem that the government learned the lessons of the last 18 months. The government is in charge of the rollout, and I don’t think it is fair to blame the public for a slow rate of vaccination. If the capacity is there, if the jabs are there, then they need to make sure that people are being given the jabs as quickly as possible.
