Concern for London

[Hamilbamil]

I had assumed that the lower vaccine take-up in London was largely due to it having a younger population. Whereas that's true to an extent, a significant portion of older people aren't vaccinated either...

For instance. East Suffolk has 96% of its 70-74 year olds double-vaccinated, Lambeth has just 74%. With the Delta variant, surely things risk getting really bad in inner London boroughs as and when restrictions are lifted completely as they struggle to get to 60% full vaccinated adults overall - below here immunity levels - whilst other parts of the country end up in excess of 90%.

I haven't really kept up with vaccination rates in London. Are they low across the capital or just in certain boroughs? Obviously, it's a concern with numbers going up.

Our borough seems very low compared to the neighbouring one. They have far fewer cases and a higher vaccine uptake. I think we only have 39 per cent of second jabs done compared to over 50 per cent.

@AlexaShutUp

I haven't really kept up with vaccination rates in London. Are they low across the capital or just in certain boroughs? Obviously, it's a concern with numbers going up.

London is notably lower than other regions, with inner London boroughs being particularly low. Outer London boroughs aren't as bad.

The difficulty in places like london is establishing a reliable baseline population and then a means to contact people. It’s impossible to contact people if you don’t know who they are, where they live or what their telephone number is.

People move a lot in places like Lambeth and that mobility is often international. It’s not uncommon for people to live in london for part of the year and then in another country for the rest of the year.

Places like Lambeth will also have a high percentage of new migrants living in concentrated communities. This is the population least likely to engage with the NHS and a vaccine programme. Second and third generation ethnic minorities have good if not better rates of uptake in london compared to white British.

But ultimately pockets of low uptake will be fertile areas to seed outbreaks causing social, economic and health inequalities.

I live in an outer London borough and rates are lower than the national average, though my observations are that wearing of face coverings and social distancing seems a lot higher than in many places.

I see. Is it a problem in inner cities more generally? I know that the vaccination rates in the two cities closest to me are much lower than the rates in my small town.

Very worrying, either way. Hopefully the vaccination drive can be stepped up in those areas over the next few weeks, but of course, that will only help if people are willing to have the jab. If the issue is vaccine hesitancy, that's much harder to fix.

I imagine that inner city populations correspond pretty closely with higher levels of deprivation and a higher proportion of people from ethnic minority backgrounds. We know that vaccine hesitancy is higher in both of those groups, presumably because of a lack of trust in the authorities. Sadly, those same populations have been harder hit by previous waves of the virus. I don't know what the answer is.

It very much depends what the reason is and posters above have made some good observations. But there’s really only so much the NHS/gov can do, you can’t drag people in and hold them down.

Inner London Borough here and 51% have had one vaccination, 29% have had two.

I don't know if it's down to the demographic here? IE if we have a very high "young" population then it makes sense only half the Borough has been vaccinated. But I need to look more closely at the age range of my Borough.

Thankfully I'm in the 29% who are double dosed.

2011 census shows my borough having average age if 35 and median age if 31.

I know the data is a decade old but interesting none the less.

@Crunchymum

2011 census shows my borough having average age if 35 and median age if 31.

I know the data is a decade old but interesting none the less.

london has a very different demographic to the rest of the country. It is younger and therefore always had more to do in final 3 cohorts.

In my area of London, pretty much everyone I know has had covid. Hopefully, natural immunity should be high in these areas.

Agreed demographically London is often a lot younger - therefore even before you take into account transient population etc it will have been later for the majority to start vaccinations

As well as the excellent points about demographics above, I think a lot of Londoners have a very different attitude to risk compared to the rest of the country.

Londoners experience constant low level threats of terrorist attacks, gang violence and crimes. Most people just block this out and get on with their lives and I think they take the same approach to Covid.

@UnwantedGain

In my area of London, pretty much everyone I know has had covid. Hopefully, natural immunity should be high in these areas.

Yes, those groups that are less engaged with the vaccination programme are probably also likely to have been more exposed to Covid and have higher immunity from prior infection from the past two waves, even higher than the average for the boroughs they inhabit. This should mitigate the low vaccinate rates sonewhat.

The recent mass vaccinations with no appointment required and no questions asked have shown that is the way forward for London and other major cities. Crucially, we need night-time and weekend availability too.

Lots of people will not sign up to anything which means they have to identify themselves because they have a fear of authority. Lots of people work during the week and can't take up appointments during Monday-Friday and work for employers who will not give them time off to get jabbed.

I am on another thread commenting that it is actually quite difficult to get vaccinated in central London. I had to go to another borough from my central London borough to get jabbed and I had to take time off work to do it. Totally reflected in my borough's stats of 51% jabbed and 29% second jabbed. Pretty poor!