BLACK PEOPLE are more at risk of being impacted by the UK’s third wave of Covid-19 infections, according to senior doctors.

The efforts to vaccinate the most vulnerable groups in society, including particular ethnic groups must be stepped up to improve their level of protection, they conceded.

Despite the success of the NHS vaccine rollout being the main reason for the government’s decision to move ahead with further easing of Covid restrictions on 19 July, figures still mask the fact that some ethnic groups have far lower levels of protection.

Researchers from the University of Oxford show from the latest tracking using the OpenSafely health records platform that vaccine coverage in black communities is at least 20 percentage points lower than in white groups.

In vulnerable over-80s this disparity is most prevalent and only appears to widen further into younger groups, while vaccine uptake among south Asians is estimated as halfway between that seen in the black and white populations.

Kamlesh Khunti, a member of the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) and Professor of Primary Care diabetes and Vascular Medicine at the University of Leicester, said: “The key issue is that particularly in black ethnic populations, the vaccination coverage has been lower and we need to do as much as possible to try and increase that.

“We’ve done a great job on vaccinations, but there are pockets of difference particularly among deprived populations and black communities. We really have to be cautious. We could certainly end up widening the inequalities we’ve already seen.”

Doctors previously warned that the Covid-19 pandemic has been more fatal for people from black and Asian backgrounds than white people. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) revealed that employments and living arrangements were major factors to fuelling this disparity.

The low vaccine uptake among the most vulnerable people in those communities only threatens to exacerbate the danger further.

Liam Smeeth, a GP and professor of clinical epidemiology who next month becomes the new director of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine: “We saw in the first wave, before vaccines, some very marked ethnic disparities in the impact of major disease. That was bad enough, but to see those very groups that have the most to gain from vaccination – because they have the highest risk of severe disease – being the groups with lower vaccination coverage is very disturbing.”

“We need to redouble our efforts to ensure that people really are being offered slots for vaccines at times they can easily get to, in places they can easily get to, to make sure people really are given every opportunity to opt in and get the vaccine,” he added.