The Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham says that poorer people should receive the vaccine before older people in affluent areas
Talking to the Sunday Times, the Mayor said that there waxstrong case” to send more vaccines into areas “where life expectancy is lowest”.
“Purely going on an age basis down the vaccination priority groups, you would end up with a situation where people in wealthier areas who are at home or not working would be vaccinated before somebody with poorer health in a deprived area who was out at work driving a bus” he told the paper
Northern leaders have called for local practitioners to be given flexibility, and for larger stocks of vaccine to go to the poorest areas.
“If you look at the risk professions that ONS [the Office for National Statistics] has identified, they are low-paid and insecure work, and, sadly, people from black and minority ethnic communities are over-represented in those professions,” he added
On Sky News the Mayor said:
“I’m not saying diverge completely from the phased (approach) set out by ages put forward by the JCVI, but what I am saying is put greater supplies of the vaccine into those areas where life expectancy is lowest and allow greater flexibility for people to be called earlier.”
