London lags behind in Covid-vaccine roll-out

Just 65 per cent of Londoners aged over 80 have received their first jab - compared to almost 84 per cent of those in the North East and Yorkshire.

Boris Johnson visiting a Covid-19 vaccine centre in London. Source: Flickr

Data published by NHS England on January 28 shows that just 197,270 people in the capital over the age of 80 have received their first Covid-jab.

Whilst London has lagged behind the other English regions for some time now, the NHS data highlights that the capital has been surpassed by the East of England - which has seen its number of first dose vaccinations amongst the over 80s increase from just 29 per cent on January 10 to almost 80 per cent. 

This news comes just days after the United Kingdom’s Covid death toll exceeded 100,000. More than one-in-10 coronavirus fatalities resided in the capital with the NHS recording more than 12,500 deaths in London’s 32 boroughs.

Surprisingly, however, London tops the table for the number of over 80s who have received both their first and second dose - at 13.2 per cent. 

Nevertheless, the UK government has already set targets to vaccinate 15 million people who are classified as one of the four most at risk groups by mid-February. This includes care home residents, frontline health and social care workers, all those aged over 70 and people who are “extremely vulnerable”.

On January 28, across England, little over 11 per cent, or 5,792,159, adults had received their first dose of the Covid vaccine. 

In London, however, the figure was slightly lower with just 9 per cent or 626,074 adults being inoculated and approximately 120,000 of these vaccinations had been conducted less than a mile away from Gower Street at the North London Partners in Health and Care centre in St Pancras.

AstraZeneca’s CEO, Pascal Soirot, told the Telegraph he remains confident that the UK government will reach their mid-February target and added that he believes the UK’s “headstart” over the EU could mean that over-50s will start to receive their jabs in March.

Nonetheless, The Independent has reported on the growing concerns that there is “substantial divergence” in Covid vaccination rates between different ethnic groups. The paper found that in the first month of vaccinations - between December 8 and January 13 - the rate of vaccinations amongst white people aged 80 and over stood at 42.5 per cent, more than double that of Afro-Caribbean people - which stood at just 20.5 per cent.

After this recent announcement, according to figures published by the Office for National Statistics about ethnicity in England, it can be estimated that whilst more than one-in-10 or 4,422,280 of those classified as White British have received their first jab, less than one-in-20 Black Britons have.

The Labour MP for Battersea and the shadow minister for women and equality, Marsha de Cordova, told The Independent: “We must vaccinate Britain, and to do that we need a plan to ensure that no one from black, Asian and ethnic minority communities is left behind.” This comes after studies found that the pandemic had already taken a disproportionate toll on Britain’s BAME communities. 

Since the NHS report was published on January 28, vaccines have continued to be rolled-out at a rapid rate. On February 1, The i’s frontpage claimed that the UK had broken the vaccination record with “600,000 jabs in just one day”. This means that a total of 13.4 per cent of adults in Britain have received at least one dose of the vaccine. 

All vaccinations conducted are recorded in NHS England’s dosage-data, with the latest figures published on February 4.