Jabs: let’s get it right

Prospective KCC Labour candidates Cllr Jackie Meade and Cllr Laura Davison have commented on the widespread concerns about local roll-out of vaccination programmes:

“In this race against time to vaccinate our community against Covid 19, Folkestone has been massively let down. Everyone understands that it takes time to get facilities in place but why was planning to identify and confirm venues for this roll out not completed months ago?

Since very early on in this pandemic it has been clear that a mass vaccine programme delivered at speed was the only real way out of this crisis. However for some patients in Folkestone there is still no local vaccine centre available. Damian Collins MP announced on Jan 7th that the Civic Centre would begin vaccinating from Monday Jan 11th but this has not happened. Instead elderly and vulnerable patients have instead been invited to travel to Dover.

It beggars belief that we are in this position when we were placed in the highest tier before Christmas and have seen high infection and death rates. Why is it that when Folkestone has high levels of poverty and deprivation, compounded by this pandemic, that we are at the back of the queue.

Vaccine injections are now due to start at the Civic Centre this coming Monday, but in the meantime precious time has been lost and in a race against time this has consequences for people’s lives. There must be transparency and public investigation into what has caused these delays. Silence from those in charge about what has gone wrong is just not good enough.”

15th January 2021