Every fortnight Kevin writes a "Kev's Column" for the Herald Express and you can read the latest edition (Published on Wednesday 3rd March 2021) below:
Kev’s Column:
Unlocking
Last week the Prime Minister outlined the Government’s route map out of lockdown and a four-step approach towards removing all legal restrictions related to Covid-19.
Inevitably there were those who argued the plan could go more quickly and others who said it should be slower. Yet overall, I believe the right balance has been struck. We cannot remain in lockdown forever, but none of us want a situation where we re-open our bay to visitors and then close it down again following a spike in cases. The move to allow businesses to re-open and activities to restart must therefore be based on cases continuing to fall, the numbers of patients being treated by the NHS reducing and no new variants of concern emerging which could jump the wall of protection provided by the vaccination programme. In short, we must do all we can to ensure Lockdown 3 is the last.
The first priority is getting all children back to school and restarting many of the activities which help them grow and develop, even though this does mean delaying the restarting of some pastimes and activities for adults until the start of the Easter Holidays. I know school staff across the bay are now working hard to get necesary measures in place ready for a successful return of pupils on Monday.
Of most interest to our bay’s economy is the indications of when our hospitality industry may start to re-open, with the first tourist visitors potentially able to book some forms of accommodation in our bay from 12th April, ahead of a full re-opening of the resort on 17th May.
The challenges presented by the pandemic are far from over and we cannot take our eye off the ball, yet there is a sense with the vaccination campaign making rapid progress the blue skies of summer are now much closer.
Vaccination Phase 2
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) has published its advice on what the priority order should be for the approximately 21m adults, not covered by the first phase of the vaccination programme. In essence those aged 18-49 who have no underlying health conditions.
The Government asked the JCVI to produce this advice based on one objective: Saving Lives. This should be the primary goal of the vaccination programme, hence the Government is right to accept the advice given by the JCVI about how best to achieve this by prioritising jabs in Phase 2 by age, with those aged 40—49 first, then those aged 30-39 and finally those aged 18 to 29.
This is also the simplest way to ensure all adults are offered a jab before the summer as the NHS knows our age, but not necessarily our occupation.
Surgery Times
Due to the current restrictions I have had to cancel my regular face to face advice surgeries.
I hope to restart them as soon as possible, but in the meantime a telephone call appointment can be arranged. Please note these telephone surgeries are for urgent personal matters, such as welfare, immigration, housing, problems accessing support and benefits, rather than to discuss policy or the wider situation.
You can either email me at [email protected] or leave a message on 01803 214989 and we will get back to you as quickly as possible.
