Covid-19 Update

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Thursday 12th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

The noble Lord is completely reasonable in his concerns but that is not the approach we are taking at the moment. Actually, public support for the lockdown measures—the wearing of masks, social distancing and restrictions on travel—has been amazing. Lockdown has been largely by consent and extremely well supported by the public in their behaviour. We are extremely proud that in Britain we do not need the Army on the street with their guns or the police fining people on the street, as they do in other countries. I pay tribute to the British public for the way in which they have gone along with those measures. The noble Lord makes the point that some people have been in breach of the rules and there have been prosecutions and fines. However, they have been minimal and have had their effect. We will continue to operate at the kind of level at which we have been operating to date.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend will be aware of my interest in the Dispensing Doctors’ Association. Will he update the House on where we are with the vaccination programme for the over-50s? What use will be made of dispensing doctors in rural areas to dispense the Covid-19 vaccine? I hope he will rely on them fully because they have the network to provide it in much the same way as the noble Lord, Clark, explained.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My noble friend will be aware of the prioritisation list published by the JVCI. I am afraid that the over-50s, of which I am a member, are not highest on the list, but they are at least halfway down. Prioritisation starts with the over-80s and works down from there. I completely endorse my noble friend’s comments on dispensing doctors. We will be relying on all parts of the healthcare ecology to deliver the vaccine. It will be a massive national project. Getting to hard-to-reach rural communities is incredibly important, particularly people in those communities who are older and perhaps do not travel. Dispensing doctors pay a pivotal role in that, and I pay tribute to their contribution to the vaccine.