THE clue is in the name: care worker.

In other words, a person whose job (though they may also be an unpaid volunteer) is to provide care to those less fortunate than themselves.

To people who maybe disabled, incapacitated, incontinent, immobile or suffering one or more of the wounding barbs that life has a nasty habit of unleashing.

They need various levels of being cared for. Not something most of them would ever wish for, but necessary in their circumstances.

Their needs are often so demanding and continuous they can only be met by specially created facilities able to provide the environment, time, staff, knowledge and equipment specific to each individual.

In other words, care homes. With care staff.

And it takes a very special kind of person to take on such work. A caring person. One who can make those they care for feel they are wanted, not rejected or forgotten, not a nuisance, and that they will receive the best care possible.

Which is why it is hard to understand why anyone working in a care home, especially those in contact with the residents and patients, would refuse to have an anti-Covid vaccination. Yet many – far too many – do.

The jab is all about protection and damage limitation. Protecting the residents from the virus and doing the utmost to halt its spread.  Caring.

Being a care home worker (or volunteer) is a matter of personal choice; no one is compelled to take on such hard and often  mentally and physically draining work. So all praise and admiration for those who do.

The assumption is that they care. Truly and honestly care.

So why would a care worker refuse to be vaccinated and thus help protect those they ostensibly care for? And also protect their family, friends and others in the wider community in the unfortunate eventuality that their work makes them a carrier or transmitter of the virus?

There maybe health, ethical, religious or various other reasons for refusal. Plenty have been voiced, most of which are arguable and hard to comprehend.

But that’s your choice. In which case it seems only fair (and caring) to absent yourself from such an environment of proven high risk. Or expect to be removed.

For those who plead they need the money, there are other less fragile environments where jab refusers can be employed.

But to expect to care for the most fragile members of our community you need to care enough to take every precaution available to limit Covid’s spread.

To work in a care home and not care enough to protect those who are  allegedly being cared for shows a severe and illogical lack of compassion.

You simply don’t care. Nor should you be allowed to while the infection rates continue to rise – nor well into the future.

Jabber, jabber, jabber.