Covid-19: Taxi drivers 'should be vaccinated as a priority'

Mr Mangera said vaccination would give drivers and passengers "extra protection"

Taxi drivers should be treated as "front-line workers" and moved up the priority list for vaccinations, a trade association's chairman has said.

Blackburn with Darwen Hackney Carriage Association's Ashraf Mangera said drivers should be a "priority group".

He added that ferrying patients and NHS workers made them "vulnerable".

The borough's public health director said the council had acted to protect drivers, as they were "undoubtedly more likely to be infected".

Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, Mr Mangera said his members were "used to driving key vulnerable groups around, such as the elderly and the disabled, often to hospital or to and from care homes".

"They also ferry NHS workers about when public transport is not available [and help] to do school runs for pupils," he added.

"Even though the council fitted our cabs with screens, we are a vulnerable group and vaccination would give drivers and passengers... extra protection."

Blackburn with Darwen's public health director Prof Dominic Harrison said that while "drivers are undoubtedly more likely to be infected... not all are necessarily clinically vulnerable" and the Covid-19 vaccination priority list was "primarily trying to reduce hospitalisation and deaths, so it should include those taxi drivers at most risk already".

He said a recent report by the Office for National Statistics had confirmed taxi drivers were "in a higher risk occupation", which was due to them being "exposed to many more contacts than most other occupations".

"Blackburn with Darwen Council has already taken measures to fit screens in taxis and offered testing to drivers," he added.