ON Thursday, the Government suggested, via the Health Secretary and the medical director of primary care at NHS England, that there was going to be a re-allocation of vaccines away from the North-East so other regions could catch up.

In some ways, that was fair, as all parts of the country should move forward together. But in other ways, it is desperately unfair, as we still have about 30 per cent over our over-80 year olds waiting for the jabs – why should they have to wait longer just because the North-East has been efficiently vaccinating the first to be called?

The palpable anger in the local community could be felt by our Conservative MPs. One of them explained: “There is no regional redirection happening. What we are witnessing is an adjustment in delivery patterns due to a limited vaccine supply.”

Which didn’t really clear anything up, so they had a meeting with the vaccine minister Nadhim Zahawi who said it was “mis-information” and the region would continue to receive the same allocation of doses.

This is good news, but if the re-direct was “misinformation”, the Government should have slapped it down as soon as it slipped out of the Department of Health.

People will be watching suspiciously to see if any vaccination clinics run short next week, but the outcry should be seen as a symptom of the success of the vaccine roll-out – people are literally crying out for it.