We need to prioritise vaccines for teachers to stop school disruption

Our fantastic NHS staff – and all of the local council workers, pharmacists and volunteers who have been part of our national effort to vaccinate Britain – rightly deserve our gratitude for the absolutely brilliant job they are doing to make sure everyone in the four most “at risk” groups gets their vaccine.

But now we need to go further and faster; not only to save lives, but also to ensure our children are back in schools safely, as soon as possible, and to help us to carefully and responsibly reopen our economy as infections fall and we vaccinate Britain.

The half-term break in two weeks’ time provides the ideal opportunity to vaccinate teachers and school support staff, alongside the safety measures the government is putting in place in our classrooms, as well as mass testing.  There is growing evidence that vaccines prevent transmission, and vaccinating teachers will help reduce disruption in the classroom.

Yesterday, the prime minister expressed his hope that schools can reopen in March. But a “hope” isn’t good enough. He didn’t set out a single measure that he is taking to make sure that our schools can open safely, a plan to vaccinate teachers – or even mention the mass testing in schools that we were promised before Christmas.

We all want to see children back in school as soon as possible. I pay tribute to the teachers and school support staff who have worked so hard throughout this crisis to ensure that our children can still learn at home in lockdown. Our teachers have been going the extra mile and stepping in, where the government has failed, to make sure their pupils have laptops and tablets to learn from home. 

But the reality is that our schools are closed because the government lost control of the virus again, and has failed to put in place the measures needed to ensure that our schools can be reopened safely – for good.

Throughout this crisis, many key workers have been at greater risk of infection, hospitalisation and death because of their jobs. The ONS data published this week shows that key workers who are more exposed to Covid – and work in close proximity to others – have higher Covid death rates than the rest of the population and other workers.

Our key workers have sacrificed so much during this crisis to keep our country going. From the supermarket staff who have kept us fed, to the police officers who have kept us safe, and the public transport workers who have made sure our NHS and social care staff can get to work, millions of people have put themselves in harm’s way.

The first phase of the vaccine rollout has rightly been focused on those groups most at risk of death and hospitalisation, but as we ramp up capacity – and after we’ve vaccinated teachers as part of a national effort to reopen schools – it is right that key workers who are most exposed, and most likely to pass the virus on to others, are prioritised alongside priority groups 5-9. 

This isn’t an either/or: if the government delivers the vaccines, then we can make sure our key workers are protected alongside the over-50s, over-60s and people with underlying health conditions.

The government’s priority must be to do all they can to ensure vaccines reach our NHS vaccination centres without delay. We must get the vaccine into the hands of nurses, doctors, pharmacists and volunteers as soon as we are able, to go faster and further with our vaccination programme and vaccinate more people – including our teachers and other key workers.

Angela Rayner is shadow first secretary of state and deputy leader of the Labour Party