Kent Police Federation vows to continue to press for Covid-19 vaccines for police officers.

12 January 2021

Kent Police Federation has vowed to continue to press for Covid-19 vaccines for police officers.

Vaccines Minister Nadhim Zahawi yesterday (11 January) said police officers, along with teachers and other critical workers will not be considered for the vaccine until March.

Neil Mennie, Kent Police Federation Chair, said: “The Vaccines Minister said mid-March which unfortunately is a bit too far off for us. We’d like it sooner than that and we will continue to press for that.

“We’d love to be able to carry out our business socially distanced at all times but we just can’t do that. Even something like someone being angry and shouting at us creates aerosols. We have to go into people’s personal spaces and we need to do that as safely as we can. Really and truly we need to be vaccinated as soon as we can so we can help.”

Neil was speaking on BBC Radio Kent this morning about policing demand during the third national lockdown. He said: “We are trying to do all our normal policing as well. And it is a busy world. We haven’t stopped, crime hasn’t stopped and every call we have to go to we have to consider the risk of Covid to our officers as well. So, it’s a big industry and it is not just about Covid enforcement.

“The tougher approach will only come when an officer makes that judgement that it is a requirement of the situation they find themselves in. It’s not about changing our approach, it is about listening carefully to some of the reasons and rationale why the public in certain places are breaching the [Covid] rules and where there isn’t a reasonable explanation, yes of course we will enforce. The number of fines has gone up and that is quite right. It is about being appropriate.

“We don’t want to be intrusive and upset people because the public here in Kent are generally pretty good and are following the rules and we hope that continues because we don’t want the minority ruining it for the majority and risk spreading this awful illness.”

Neil said more needs to be done by other agencies, as well as society, to make issues such as not wearing masks in supermarkets socially unacceptable.

He added that despite the demand, numbers of officers on duty at the moment are still satisfactory: “Things are going well. Officers feel very guilty about falling ill or having to self isolate because they don’t want to let the teams they are working with down. Even though it is not their fault. We are still maintaining our rules very strictly as the last thing we want to do is have officers poorly which then diminishes ability to attend to all policing - including the Covid stuff.”