The public have also been favourable to allowing teachers to get vaccinated before them
Earlier in the year, the Labour party proposed vaccinating teachers ahead of the general public, once the most vulnerable had received their doses. The party called on the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), which recommends the vaccine priority order to ministers, to say teachers should get their jab first.
In doing so, the party argued, it would allow schools to re-open more quickly.
Fast forward several weeks, and the JCVI made its next priority recommendations to ministers, saying they should be based solely on age rather than occupation. Schools have since re-opened without teachers receiving their vaccine.
Teachers certainly do think they should be next in line for a coronavirus vaccine, however.
A new YouGov TeacherTrack survey shows that three quarters of teachers (76%) say that teachers should be a higher priority for vaccinations than the general public once vaccination of the initial priority groups has been completed. Only one in five (19%) say they should not be a priority, with 6% unsure.
These results are consistent across primary and secondary teachers, and the size of the school teachers work at.
In a prior YouGov survey, conducted in November 2020, the British public had also been in favour of giving teachers early vaccination. Four in ten (41%) said teachers should be one of the top priority groups, and a further 43% said they should be have priority ahead of the general public but not top priority. Only 11% of Britons said teachers should not have any priority status.
