16 2GM Saturday December 18 2021 | the times
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“I just don’t see the point in being
vaccinated – the virus is mainly fatal to
the middle aged,” says one man in his
twenties.
“I still feel sceptical and quite scared,”
adds a young woman. The speed at
which Covid jabs were developed
makes her uneasy. “Until I’m actually
forced to do it, I don’t think I want to,”
she tells a focus group run by Dr Simon
Williams of Swansea University.
With the Omicron variant fuelling a
surge in cases, Boris Johnson has
stressed – and his scientific advisers
agree – that the best thing we can do to
help the NHS is to be fully immunised.
Even now, though, a year after Britain
began its vaccination campaign,
around 6 million of those eligible are
yet to receive a single dose.
Polling shows that one in five 18-
year olds don’t plan to have their boost-
er vaccination and the acceleration of
the booster programme has reinvigor-
ated a disruptive hardcore of conspira-
cy theorists.
Focus groups and interviews suggest
that many others remain “politely hesi-
tant” — quietly concerned about long-
term side effects or confident that they
are not personally in danger. Signifi-
cant numbers, especially among ethnic
minorities, do not trust the authorities.
Others face a language barrier or trans-
port problems.
Professor Heidi Larson of the
London School of Hygiene and Tropi-
cal Medicine sees a landscape dotted
with hard-to-reach vaccine-hesitant
tribes. “Anything that’s going to make a
difference with people who’ve been
holding out this long needs to be highly
tailored, highly specific to their con-
cerns, to their issues, and it’s probably
got to come from somebody from with-
in their community,” she says.
So who are they?
the worried
Dr Victoria Male’s day job involves
being a lecturer in reproductive immu-
nology at Imperial College. Over the
past year, though, she’s led a double-life
— as a counsellor and confidant to hun-
dreds of pregnant women who have not
been sure whether they should be vac-
cinated against Covid.
They are part of a larger group —
people with genuine safety worries.
Figures released last month by the
Office for National Statistics showed
that 58 per cent of those still unvacci-
nated said that concerns about side ef-
fects had stopped them. Reports of
blood clots and potential heart prob-
lems have fuelled anxieties, though ex-
perts say that the safety profile of the
vaccines is excellent.
But Male says that the worries of
pregnant women can almost all be
traced to a single piece of misinforma-
tion. “Almost exactly this time last year,
these rumours started to circulate on
social media: that if you got vaccinated
against Covid, it would produce anti-
bodies that would attack the placenta,”
she said.
“And that those antibodies could
cause you to become infertile or could
cause you to have a miscarriage.”
The lie was started by Michael Yea-
don, a former Pfizer executive who has
become one of the most influential
figures in the British antivax move-
ment. Together with a former German
politician, he wrote to the European
clubs had more than half of players re-
ceived a vaccination.
Being young and fit and feeling invin-
cible is no guarantee of protection,
however, as Karl Darlow proved when
he caught Covid before he was due to
have his first jab and ended up on a drip
in hospital. In August the NewcastleReasons for refusing jab
Survey respondents were asked:
Which of these health-related
reasons, if any, have stopped you
from getting a coronavirus vaccine?
Health Trust Personal
Potential side effectsDeveloped too quicklyPotential long-term effectsVaccine effectivenessDistrust government adviceLack of transparencyLack of personal risk (health)Safety concernsLack of personal risk (age)58%55%54%45%41%41%34%32%27%
Data collected from September 7 to 16
Source: Office for National StatisticsNews Coronavirus
Who are Britain’s six million
Medicines Agency claiming that the
coronavirus spike protein looked simi-
lar to a protein involved in forming the
placenta, and that therefore a vaccine
would cause the body to attack it.
As a scientist who happened to work
on how the immune system responds to
the placenta, Male knew that it didn’t
make sense biologically. “We even had
evidence that it wasn’t the case — and I
thought, you know, who was better in a
better position to explain this than
me?” She fired off her first Twitter post
on December 17 last year. Since then,
she’s made a webinar that’s been
watched 41,000 times and has been
able to reassure hundreds of pregnant
women individually.ethnic minorities
Kai Warner, 29, a painter from south
London, said that vaccine status has di-
vided his family. “I’m of mixed heritage
— my Mum’s side is from the Caribbean
but my Dad and his family are white,
British and Irish,” he said.
“There’s definitely a split on who has
been vaccinated, it’s not clear cut, but
more of my black relatives who are here
haven’t had it yet. Everyone has their
own reasons but I think it’s to do with
trust. And I don’t think my white British
family understand that. They just have
a different life experience, they think
not getting the vaccine is irresponsible.”
NHS figures from the beginning of
December show that vaccination rates
differ dramatically between ethnic
groups. For black people of Caribbean
ethnicity around 45 per cent of over-18s
were unvaccinated
We can only estimate the size of these
groups so these numbers must be treat-
ed with caution, but that could equate
to around 183,000 people. For those of
African ethnicity it was 35 per cent, or
possibly about 310,000 people. For
those of Pakistani heritage, it was 27 per
cent – around 278,000 people. For
those of Bangladeshi background it was
21 per cent, or 77,000.
The ethnicity with the highest share
of unvaccinated people was Chinese, at
48 per cent, or 227,000 people. In terms
of sheer numbers, though, “White Brit-
ish” people easily come top with around
3 million, or 10 per cent, yet to be jabbed.
Dr Donald Palmer, education secre-
tary of the British Society for
Immunology, has spent
much of the past year talk-
ing to black communities.
Vaccine hesitancy is often
linked to a perception of
“medical racism” that is
grounded in historical reali-
ties, he says.
“Take the idea that black
women are up to four times
as likely to die during child-
birth ... These folks are not
antivaxers — but they’re
worried and they want reas-
surance.”
A recent report highlight-
ed three key reasons for low
vaccination rates among eth-
nic minorities: mistrust in or-
ganisations and people advis-
ing and promoting the vac-
cine, lack of culturally and
linguistically appropriate in-
formation and inconvenient
locations and timings of vac-
cine appointments.the young
The old, who have the most to
fear from Covid, have excellent rates of
coverage. Some 95 per cent of those in
their eighties have been jabbed. But
other age groups are lagging behind: for
18-24 year olds it is only about 69 per
cent.
A big reason, says Larson, is that Cov-
id very rarely causes severe disease inyoung adults. “They don’t feel as vul-
nerable,” she said. “They’re asking,
‘why are you pushing vaccines on us
when we’re not the ones getting sick?’”
Ministers and scientists stress that
being immunised is a means of protect-
ing those around you, including elderly
relatives. And young adults have alsobeen warned about the dangers of long
Covid. But those messages are compet-
ing with others. Dr Donald Palmer of
the British Society for Immunology
says that if he could change the attitude
of one group, it would be professional
footballers. In September it emerged
that only at seven of England’s 20 topratesof youngadults“Th d ’tf lTribes include the
young and some ethnic
minorities, report Rhys
Blakely, Katie Gibbons
and Emma Yeomans
d b tthedangersoflongFootsoldiers 4 Freedom visited
more than 100 schools handing
out leaflets, below, that urge
people not to get jabbed. The Light,
an antivaxer newspaper edited by
a musician in Manchester, has a
print run of 240,000. Beverley
Turner, a radio presenter, right,
said children should not be used
as vaccine “guinea pigs”