The UK government is set to announce that it is dropping the requirement for NHS patient facing staff, to be double-jabbed against covid-19 y April 1st or face the sack.
Health Secretary Sajid Javid will meet ministers today with an official announcement expected before Thursday, the last day on which staff could get their first jab in order to be fully jabbed in time.
According to The Telegraph:
Multiple government sources said ministers are expected to end the requirement because the omicron Covid variant, now dominant in the UK, is milder than previous strains.
The move comes after warnings that almost 80,000 healthcare workers would be forced out of their jobs because they had declined to take two doses of a Covid vaccine.
The Royal College of Nursing, the Royal College of Midwives and the Royal College of GPs have all pushed for the requirement to be delayed, with warnings it would have a “catastrophic” impact.
Paramedic Matt Taylor told the BBC that he’s prepared to lose his job in defiance of the mandate. He said:
“We all know people who are triple jabbed and they’ve still got Covid or they’ve not been jabbed and they haven’t got it. It’s not like the vaccine has eradicated Covid like some vaccines have done in the past, so I find the argument for the science a bit weak.”
Latest figures show that almost 95% of NHS staff have had at least one Covid jab, leaving about 77,000 who have not.
