What was claimed
GPs should be the first to be vaccinated when a Covid-19 vaccine becomes available.
Our verdict
The government has published plans indicating that health workers will be among the first to receive a vaccine when available.
GPs and other frontline medical workers will be among the first to receive a Covid-19 vaccine
25 November 2020
A post suggesting that GPs should be the first to get a Covid-19 vaccine when one becomes available has been shared hundreds of times on Facebook.
The post text reads:
“If the vaccine is so safe and effective why not do our GPs first [sic]
Then they can safely return to their surgeries and attend to all our health needs safe in the knowledge they cannot be infected”
It is likely that GPs and other healthcare workers will be among the first to receive a Covid-19 vaccine.
The UK government has already published a provisional priority ranking for a potential vaccine, which currently lists “health and social care workers”, along with those over 80, as second on the list, after older adults resident in care homes and care home workers.
This is subject to change, depending on what vaccine becomes available or the state of the pandemic, but it’s likely vaccinating health workers will be considered a priority.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as missing context because health workers are likely to be considered a priority group to be vaccinated.