12 July 2021
The UK's rising third wave of COVID-19 is likely to have the worst impact on black and other ethnic minority groups, according to experts.
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"Fears black people could bear brunt of Covid third wave in UK
Senior doctors call for redoubling of efforts to vaccinate the most vulnerable in some ethnic groups
Black communities are at risk of bearing the brunt of the UK’s third wave of Covid infections, according to senior doctors who said efforts to vaccinate the most vulnerable people in certain ethnic groups must be redoubled to improve their protection.
The success of the NHS vaccine rollout is central to the government’s decision to move ahead with further easing of Covid restrictions on 19 July. But headline figures which show at least 90% of over-65s in England have had two doses of vaccine mask the fact that some ethnic groups have far lower levels of protection.
The latest tracking by researchers from the University of Oxford using the OpenSafely health records platform reveals vaccine coverage in black communities is at least 20 percentage points lower than in white groups. The disparity exists in the most vulnerable over-80s and appears to widen further in younger groups. Vaccine coverage among south Asians is roughly halfway between that seen in the black and white populations."
Source: The Guardian, 12 July 2021
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