Booster jabs and public’s duty as Omicron threat grows on vaccine anniversary – The Yorkshire Post says

EVEN IF families across the region are finding it increasingly difficult to take this government seriously in the wake of last year’s Christmas party in Downing Street that appears to have contravened lockdown laws, they must take Covid – and the threat now posed by the Omicron variant – seriously.
Margaret Keenan and Nurse May Parsons at University Hospital Coventry & Warwickshire, a year after Margaret was the first person in the United Kingdom to receive the Pfizer/BioNtech covid-19 vaccine.Margaret Keenan and Nurse May Parsons at University Hospital Coventry & Warwickshire, a year after Margaret was the first person in the United Kingdom to receive the Pfizer/BioNtech covid-19 vaccine.
Margaret Keenan and Nurse May Parsons at University Hospital Coventry & Warwickshire, a year after Margaret was the first person in the United Kingdom to receive the Pfizer/BioNtech covid-19 vaccine.

As Ministers move to tighten the current restrictions, it is even more important that the public lead by example, and have their booster jabs, so not to compromise the progress that has been made since Margaret Keenan became the first person in the world to have a Covid jab a year ago this week.

This anniversary should have been an opportunity for the country to thank the scientists who pioneered the vaccine – and all those who have supported the NHS in providing an incredible 120 million jabs in the past year. Without this, the National Health Service’s position would be even more perilous this Christmas as the bed shortage intensifies and waiting lists grow by the minute.

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This landmark was 
also a chance for the Government to thank the overwhelming majority of the public for their compliance, sacrifice and heartache on those occasions when they were forbidden from spending precious time with dying loved ones while Downing Street aides were mocking them. And the fact that Ministers like Health Secretary Sajid Javid feel unable to convey this message makes it even more important that the law-abiding public take it upon themselves to continue to demonstrate the type of responsibility that is clearly beyond the capabilities of some in Downing Street – lives depend on it.

File photo dated 08/12/20 of Margaret Keenan, 90, becoming the first patient in the United Kingdom to receive the Pfizer/BioNtech covid-19 vaccine at University Hospital, Coventry, administered by nurse May Parsons, at the start of the largest ever immunisation programme in the UK's history.File photo dated 08/12/20 of Margaret Keenan, 90, becoming the first patient in the United Kingdom to receive the Pfizer/BioNtech covid-19 vaccine at University Hospital, Coventry, administered by nurse May Parsons, at the start of the largest ever immunisation programme in the UK's history.
File photo dated 08/12/20 of Margaret Keenan, 90, becoming the first patient in the United Kingdom to receive the Pfizer/BioNtech covid-19 vaccine at University Hospital, Coventry, administered by nurse May Parsons, at the start of the largest ever immunisation programme in the UK's history.

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