(Bloomberg) --
U.K. Health Secretary Sajid Javid told care home workers they needed to get vaccinated against Covid-19 or find another job.
The government has given the workers until Nov. 11 to get the vaccine or risk losing their jobs. In an interview with the BBC's Radio 4 on Saturday, Javid said he wasn't prepared to “pause” the requirement, adding that if you work in a care home and “cannot be bothered to go and get vaccinated, then get out and go and get another job.”
The U.K. has suffered more than 137,000 deaths from Covid, the most in Western Europe. The virus swept through care homes, with their elderly and often medically vulnerable residents, at the start of the pandemic.
The government has been easing Covid restrictions in recent months, counting on one of the world's most successful vaccine programs to limit the impact of the virus.
Still, the spread of the delta variant has led infections to surge anew, with breakthrough cases rising, particularly among the most vulnerable.
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Nadra Ahmed, chairman of the National Care Association, told the BBC that 86% of care home workers are now vaccinated, but without an extension to the government's November deadline consequences on care would be severe.
“The situation is chronic now with staffing and that deadline will just add to it,” she told the BBC.
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