Deprived regions with poor housing are among those hardest hit by the pandemic and have faced the toughest restrictions aimed at curbing the spread of the virus. And people living in run-down parts of Blackburn, Leicester, Rochdale and Oldham, which have large numbers terraced housing and higher-than-average residency in each property, should be next in line for the newly-approved jab after the elderly and vulnerable, according to Professor Dominic Harrison.
Prof Harrison, director of public health for Blackburn and Darwen, said: “Structural factors generate a much bigger population risk that is very hard to mitigate through short term cycles of high levels of COVID control measures.
“There are at least 10 local authorities with similar profiles of all those four drivers of high risk, and the danger is that however well we manage COVID, we cannot compensate for that bigger hill we have to climb compared to everybody else.”
He said getting people in areas of high transmission vaccinated after the most vulnerable would “give these areas a fairer chance of exiting restrictions, given their high economic risks”.
And he warned deprived areas could end up trapped under the highest level of restrictions for the next three to four months unless herd immunity developed through targeted vaccinations.
He said: “This would end up exacerbating the very things that are causing our increased risk from COVID in the first place.
“Tier three restrictions massively exacerbate the health and social risks which will have a devastating effect on the life chances of children.”
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Britain became the first country in the world to approve a COVID-19 vaccination when it gave the green light on Wednesday.
But with the first doses of the vaccine now believed to have arrived in the UK, there is still confusion over who would receive it first, with Scotland planning to deliver the jabs into care homes from December 14, but NHS England not committing to a date.
The UK has ordered 40 million doses of the Pfizer jab, enough to vaccinate 20 million people, with 800,000 doses expected to arrive by next week.
Issues surrounding storage temperature and how many times it can be transported have prompted Boris Johnson to warn of “immense logistical challenges” in the Pfizer rollout, with experts saying people in care homes might face a delay in receiving immunisation from the disease.
Tim Spector, lead scientist on the Zoe COVID Symptom Study app and professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London, said it was “encouraging” to see the falling rates but warned against complacency.
He said: “It’s encouraging to see rates are still falling across most of the UK, and we’re now below 21,000 cases, less than half the peak of the second wave we saw in October.
“However, while we are also seeing steady falls in admissions now, it’s important that we aren’t complacent.
“Even though the UK will start the vaccine roll out next week, many of us won’t be getting one for a few months, so keeping the numbers low and under control is really important for the NHS.
“I’m confident that Zoe’s app data really is the most up-to-date picture we have.”
