MIKE HILL: Angered by decision to halve vaccine supply to us up here

The spread of COVID 19 in Hartlepool appears to be decreasing steadily according to the figures from the ONS; although sadly our hospitals remain full and too many people are still dying.
Being ahead of the schedule was a good thing and we should have been allowed to crack on and immunise everyone else.Being ahead of the schedule was a good thing and we should have been allowed to crack on and immunise everyone else.
Being ahead of the schedule was a good thing and we should have been allowed to crack on and immunise everyone else.

On Tuesday, the total 100,000; a frightening record when you think it was only a year ago that the first 2 cases were identified in York and hospitalised in the Newcastle RVI. Who could anticipate back then that a year on we would be in a third lockdown with the highest per capita COVID death-rate in the world, the majority of international borders shut to our citizens - as are ours to them, belatedly - and that our children would effectively lose a year of school-based education?

But as I say, the spread of Covid-19 appears to be declining in Hartlepool, which is why I was so angry last week when I learned that vaccine supplies to the North East and Yorkshire were to be halved as of this week in order to ‘level up’ the immunisation programme and redirect provisions to London and other areas. All because the roll out has been so successful in our region that we were two weeks ahead of schedule for vaccinating the top four groups identified by the Joint Commission on Vaccination and Immunisation.

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Despite the message being put out by a professional medical journal and confirmed to me and other MPs by NHS Officials, government spin soon made it plain that in their opinion this was not the case and that the North East and Yorkshire would receive adequate supplies to meet the Government target of mid-February for the whole country. In other words, a slow-down of distribution for us here in Hartlepool.

It is a total disgrace that our region, which has the lowest life expectancy rates in the country, should be penalised for the excellent progress made in vaccinating the vulnerable in our towns and our care homes. Our immunisation programme should not be delayed one second by a government timetable for all regions. Being ahead of the schedule was a good thing and we should have been allowed to crack on and immunise everyone else.