The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has broken with advice from its own internal advisory panel to back a booster shot of the Pfizer and BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine for Americans aged 65 and older, adults with underlying medical conditions and adults in high-risk working and institutional settings.

CDC overrides advisory panel to back Pfizer booster for Americans with high-risk jobs

The UK’s COVID-19 response has been criticised severely. Britain is among the countries with the highest number of recorded COVID-19 cases and deaths. But with its vaccination campaign, its fortunes seem to have turned. The UK is one of the world’s front runners when it comes to vaccine coverage. On December 8 2020, it became the first country to start administering a fully trialled and tested COVID-19 vaccine to its citizens. Since then, more than 18 million people in the UK have received a first vaccine dose, with over 600,000 second doses also being administered. The UK government has pledged that all adults will be offered a vaccine before the end of July. This would be a huge achievement less than eight months after vaccinations began. Initially, this deadline was late autumn, which demonstrates the success of Britain’s initiative to date. The speedier rollout of the vaccine raises hopes for a swifter end to restrictions. Unsurprisingly, rollout so far has been termed a “rare pandemic success”. Here’s how it’s been achieved.

The UK’s speedy COVID-19 vaccine rollout: surprise success or planned perfection?

Chris Baraniuk explains the elements that have made the UK’s vaccination programme a front runner globally and describes the hurdles that lie aheadIt looks like a world beating performance—the United Kingdom has administered more covid-19 vaccine first doses per 100 people (19) than any other nation of comparable population size.1At the time of writing, 12 million people—roughly as many as the entire population of another vaccine front runner, Israel—have received their first dose of either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. Daily reports indicate that, on some days, more than half a million people have received a dose. The government seems reasonably well placed to hit its target of giving 15 million people their first dose by mid-February. But the full story of the vaccination programme shows bumps in the road as well as successes.

Covid-19: How the UK vaccine rollout delivered success, so far

doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.n421

10.31219/osf.io/grzma

The UK JCVI committee recently announced that vaccines would not be offered to all 12-17 year olds, as the potential risks were not outweighed by the benefits. Here, we offer a quantitative risk-benefit analysis of vaccines among 12-17 year olds in England, showing that the benefits of vaccination greatly outweigh risks among12-17 year olds in England in the current context.

Vaccinating adolescents in England: a risk-benefit analysis

One in four American adults have yet to receive even one dose of the coronavirus vaccine. To explain the risk they pose to themselves and others, we propose an analogy: The choice to remain unvaccinated is equivalent to driving while intoxicated. Support our journalism. Subscribe today ArrowRightSome might balk at this comparison, but here are the similarities. Both causes of severe bodily harm are largely preventable — covid-19 through vaccination, and drunken driving by not driving after drinking alcohol. Both are individual decisions with societal consequences.

Remaining unvaccinated in public should be considered as bad as drunken driving

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-02383-z

Drug companies and wealthy countries are facing increased pressure to partner with firms in the global south but are reluctant to relinquish control.

The fight to manufacture COVID vaccines in lower-income countries

We have been asked on WhatsApp about what is known on the Covid-19 vaccines crossing the placenta. Can a baby get any protection from their mother’s vaccination, and does mRNA —which is present in some of the vaccines— go across the placenta and pass from the mother to the baby? Most of the research about the Covid-19 vaccines in pregnancy has focussed on evidence of any harms to mother and baby, and the effectiveness of the vaccines for pregnant women, rather than looking directly at what crosses the placenta. We have written more about this previously.  Both of the Covid-19 vaccines recommended in pregnancy at present are mRNA vaccines (Moderna and Pfizer). mRNA vaccines work by using a lipid (fatty) membrane to deliver the genetic code (mRNA) for a protein specific to the pathogen’s surface (in the case of the Covid-19 mRNA vaccines, the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein). Cells in the body then use this mRNA to build copies of these proteins which the immune system responds to by producing antibodies. This provides protection if the person catches the real disease later. 

What do we know about the Covid-19 vaccines crossing the placenta?

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-02483-w

Hundreds of scientists had worked on mRNA vaccines for decades before the coronavirus pandemic brought a breakthrough.

The tangled history of mRNA vaccines

doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.n2211

A link is plausible and should be investigated Common side effects of covid-19 vaccination listed by the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) include a sore arm, fever, fatigue, and myalgia.1 Changes to periods and unexpected vaginal bleeding are not listed, but primary care clinicians and those working in reproductive health are increasingly approached by people who have experienced these events shortly after vaccination. More than 30 000 reports of these events had been made to MHRA’s yellow card surveillance scheme for adverse drug reactions by 2 September 2021, across all covid-19 vaccines currently offered.1Most people who report a change to their period after vaccination find that it returns to normal the following cycle and, importantly, there is no evidence that covid-19 vaccination adversely affects fertility. In clinical trials, unintended pregnancies occurred at similar rates in vaccinated and unvaccinated groups.2 In assisted reproduction clinics, fertility measures and pregnancy rates are similar in vaccinated and unvaccinated patients.34

Menstrual changes after covid-19 vaccination

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-02516-4

Risk of severe disease drops by factor of almost 20 in people over 60 — but some dispute the benefits of offering a third dose.

COVID-vaccine booster shot shows promise in Israeli study

Vaccine passports work! @CBCCalgary just reporting 175% increase in AB vaccination bookings after BC implemented vaccine passport. Imagine the increase in vaccinations if,heaven forbid,we implement a similar strategy in AB? @CBCFletch -would be great to see the reference for this

The FDA should demand adequate, controlled studies with long term follow up, and make data publicly available, before granting full approval to covid-19 vaccines, says Peter Doshi On 28 July 2021, Pfizer and BioNTech posted updated results for their ongoing phase 3 covid-19 vaccine trial. The preprint came almost a year to the day after the historical trial commenced, and nearly four months since the companies announced vaccine efficacy estimates “up to six months.” But you won’t find 10 month follow-up data here. While the preprint is new, the results it contains aren’t particularly up to date. In fact, the paper is based on the same data cut-off date (13 March 2021) as the 1 April press release, and its topline efficacy result is identical: 91.3% (95% CI 89.0 to 93.2) vaccine efficacy against symptomatic covid-19 through “up to six months of follow-up.” The 20 page preprint matters because it represents the most detailed public account of the pivotal trial data Pfizer submitted in pursuit of the world’s first “full approval” of a coronavirus vaccine from the Food and Drug Administration. It deserves careful scrutiny.

Does the FDA think these data justify the first full approval of a covid-19 vaccine?

CDC Congress coronavirus coronavirus pandemic COVID-19 covid-19 pandemic covid-19 vaccine COVID19 epidemic federal government federal legislation Federalism infectious disease Infectious Diseases jennifer bard mask mandate mask mandates non-pharmaceutical interventions pandemic public health

Today, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention took an important step in protecting the nation’s health by reinstating indoor masking for both vaccinated and unvaccinated alike, in particularly high-risk circumstances. That’s good. And so is the jump in institutions like the Veterans Health Administration requiring COVID-19 vaccination. But we need to take more forceful action, and it needs to happen faster. Just over the last few weeks, the Delta variant of the virus has swept through the United States, changing so many of the things we thought we understood about COVID-19. The federal government needs to find a way to forget past mistakes and misjudgments in the face of what can fairly be described as a new threat.

6 Actions the Federal Government Should Take in Response to the Delta Variant

Enforcement in the state’s public school systems of Gov. Greg Abbott’s ban on mask mandates has been dropped, for now, the Texas Education Agency said Thursday.

Texas drops mask mandate ban enforcement in public schools

Washington (CNN)The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday changed its masking recommendations as it grows more concerned over the Delta variant of Covid-19, urging vaccinated people in certain areas of the country to resume wearing masks indoors in public areas.CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky announced that the agency now recommends that people in areas with "high" or "substantial" Covid-19 transmission should resume wearing masks indoors. Nearly two-thirds of US counties have high or substantial transmission of Covid-19, according to CDC data; 46% of counties have high transmission and 17% have substantial transmission.

CDC changes mask guidance in response to threat of Delta variant of Covid-19

There are five key factors that universities should consider ahead of the start of the new academic year, say Simon Williams and Gavin Yamey One year ago, when universities in the United States re-opened for the fall semester, the outcome was disastrous. At that time, the US had about 55,000 new daily cases and there was “no federal covid-19 control plan or coordinated vision for safely reopening universities.” [1] In the United Kingdom, like the US, chaotic re-openings sparked outbreaks that plunged “entire flats and halls of residence into lockdown.” [2,3] With universities on both sides of the Atlantic about to reopen, institutions of higher education are “once again confronting the challenges posed by SARS-CoV-2 in their planning for safe operations during the approaching academic year.” [4] The challenges are heightened by the Delta variant, which is estimated to be twice as transmissible as the original coronavirus strain, and which is now dominant in both the US and UK. [5] 

How universities can make re-opening safer in the autumn

The U.S. is now averaging more than 900 Covid-deaths per day, the highest total since March.

| https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.647956

The COVID-19 pandemic along with the restrictions that were introduced within Europe starting in spring 2020 allows for the identification of predictors for relationship quality during unstable and stressful times. The present study began as strict measures were enforced in response to the rising spread of the COVID-19 virus within Austria, Poland, Spain and Czech Republic. Here, we investigated quality of romantic relationships among 313 participants as movement restrictions were implemented and subsequently phased out cross-nationally. Participants completed self-report questionnaires over a period of 7 weeks, where we predicted relationship quality and change in relationship quality using machine learning models that included a variety of potential predictors related to psychological, demographic and environmental variables. On average, our machine learning models predicted 29% (linear models) and 22% (non-linear models) of the variance with regard to relationship quality. Here, the most important predictors consisted of attachment style (anxious attachment being more influential than avoidant), age, and number of conflicts within the relationship. Interestingly, environmental factors such as the local severity of the pandemic did not exert a measurable influence with respect to predicting relationship quality. As opposed to overall relationship quality, the change in relationship quality during lockdown restrictions could not be predicted accurately by our machine learning models when utilizing our selected features. In conclusion, we demonstrate cross-culturally that attachment security is a major predictor of relationship quality during COVID-19 lockdown restrictions, whereas fear, pathogenic threat, sexual behavior, and the severity of governmental regulations did not significantly influence the accuracy of prediction.

Securing Your Relationship: Quality of Intimate Relationships During the COVID-19 Pandemic Can Be Predicted by Attachment Style

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.633550

Health information sources and the level of trust in a particular source may influence the subsequent adoption of advocated health behaviors. Information source preference and levels of trust are also likely to be influenced by sociodemographic (culture, age, gender) variables. Understanding these source-trust-behavior relationships across various national and cultural contexts is integral to improved health messaging. The present study identified the sources most frequently consulted to obtain information about COVID-19 during the pandemic's early stages in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The study quantified levels of trust across an array of information sources, factoring in sociodemographic variables. Finally, the study explored the relationship between sociodemographic variables, levels of trust in information sources, and the adoption of COVID-19 related protective behaviors. Participants (n = 1585) were recruited during the first 2 weeks of April 2020 via announcements in the UAE media and through email networks. All participants completed a web-based survey presented in English or Arabic, as preferred. The most frequently consulted information sources were websites (health information websites), social media, government communications, and family and friends. The sources rated most trustworthy were: personal physicians, health care professionals, and government communications. There were differences in the use of sources and levels of trust according to age, gender, and education. The levels of trust in sources of information were associated with the adoption of protective behaviors, significantly so for citizens of the UAE. These findings may help inform the improvement of pandemic–related health messaging in multicultural contexts.

Levels of Trust in Information Sources as a Predictor of Protective Health Behaviors During COVID-19 Pandemic: A UAE Cross-Sectional Study

Biden said social media companies are ‘killing people’ by spreading vaccine misinformation

People are more anti-vaccine if they get their covid news from Facebook than from Fox News, data shows

While effective vaccines against the SARS-COV-2 virus have been developed and countries around the world have invested heavily to secure vaccine rollout, a fundamental challenge remains. How do policy-makers around the world ensure high vaccine uptake? What is lacking is a comprehensive assessment that captures a total spectrum of features related to the development of a vaccine, the vaccine's characteristics as well as the implementation of the vaccination program. To provide such an assessment, we designed a conjoint experiment embedded in large-scale surveys based on a random sample from the central database of Danish social security numbers (N = 3,099), providing a sample that is representative for the adult Danish population. In the conjoint experiment, we vary features relating to three dimensions: 1) the stage of vaccine development, 2) the specific characteristics of the vaccine, and 3) the implementation of the vaccination strategy. We show that the features relating to characteristics of the specific vaccine have the strongest impact on vaccine acceptance. The features relating to vaccine development were the second most powerful, while the features relating to the implementation of the vaccination strategy were the least.

10.31234/osf.io/4y8ap

How the Development, Features and Roll-Out of a SARS-COV-2 Vaccine Shape Public Acceptance: A Conjoint Experiment in a Large Representative Sample of Danes

10.31234/osf.io/gzqcd

With the rise of social media, everyone has the potential to be both a consumer and producer of online content. As a result, the role that word of mouth plays in news consumption has been dramatically increased. Although one might assume that consumers share news because they believe it to be true, widespread concerns about the spread of misinformation suggest that truthfulness may actually not be a dominant driver of sharing online. Across two studies with 5,000 participants, we investigate what makes news sharable on social media. We find that sharing is positively predicted by two separate factors. One factor does involve the headline’s perceived accuracy, as well as its familiarity. The second, however, involves the headline’s perceived importance and emotional evocativeness. This second factor is negatively associated with the headline’s objective veracity, and less decision weight is put on the second factor by subjects with more cognitive reflection and political knowledge, and by subjects who are less politically conservative. These findings have important implications for news publishers, social media platforms, and society at large.

What Makes News Sharable on Social Media?

10.31234/osf.io/hnzke

Background: Several research studies have examined the reasons why people are hesitant to be vaccinated against COVID-19. However, there is no published data to date on Switzerland. Identifying these reasons among the Swiss population who are vaccine hesitant may help inform campaigns to encourage vaccine confidence. Aims: The primary aim of this study is to identify the reasons for not getting vaccinated against COVID-19 among Swiss residents who are vaccine hesitant. The secondary aim is to examine whether reasons differ by age, gender, education, and likelihood of accepting a vaccination to better target campaigns and design interventions. Design: An online survey asked participants to indicate the reasons why they were hesitant to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Setting: German-speaking Swiss Cantons, the survey was administered online between 5 May 2021 and 16 May 2021. Participants: The participants in this analysis were a sample of (N=1191) Swiss residents age 16-60 years old from German-speaking Cantons, who could answer an online survey in German, who had yet not been vaccinated, who had not yet registered for a vaccination appointment, and who did not indicate that they would definitely be vaccinated if offered the chance. Findings: Among people who are vaccine hesitant in Switzerland, the most common reasons for being hesitant were side-effect, safety, and effectiveness concerns. It was also common for people to indicate that they were healthy/at low risk, would decide later, and that they wanted to build immunity naturally. Less common, but still prevalent concerns included wanting more information, thinking COVID-19 was not a real threat, and concerns that the vaccine may serve another purpose. Differences in reasons for being vaccine hesitant were found by age, gender, education, and likelihood of accepting a vaccination if offered. Conclusions: To increase the likelihood of accepting a vaccination, vaccination campaigns should address side-effect, safety, and effectiveness concerns. Campaigns could also consider informing people why it is necessary for people in lower risk groups to be vaccinated, and why vaccination is preferable to infection for building immunity. While campaigns may be effective in reaching some of the population, alternative strategies might be necessary to strengthen the trust relationship with vaccines and vaccine providers in some groups. Less prevalent concerns, such as not liking needles, could be addressed through individual level interventions.

Reasons for not getting vaccinated against COVID-19 in German-speaking Switzerland: An online survey among vaccine hesitant 16-60 year olds

10.31234/osf.io/6ycqz

The first reports of COVID-19 cases were traced in Wuhan City, China, in late December 2019, post which, the deadly virus rapidly registered itself into the category of pandemics. It has continued to upend lives across the world ever since. “Lockdowns” have ensued, aimed at saving lives by putting the virus on leash, and preventing health systems from being overrun. Such quarantine measures have led to economic depression, leaving millions jobless, befalling deplorably the more vulnerable sections of society, women and girls being the primary unseen targets globally. The socio-economic downturns of the pandemic, such as closure of work places, child day-care facilities, schools, decrease in cross-country migration, and so on, have impacted women across different strata. In this article, we have attempted to collect and collate information related to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on women and girls in South Asia. Owing to unavailability of sufficient research literature on the gendered aspect of COVID-19 in South Asia, we present excerpts and case studies from various local sources like newspapers, blogs, online archives, press releases, journal articles, and some statistics of gendered impact of COVID-19 from well-respected sources. Through this article we aim to illuminate the reader about the plight of women in such a distressful time, a matter particularly less-focused on by the governments in South Asia, at the same time highlight the importance of addressing the alarming issue of staggering gender imbalance in bringing our world back to an equilibrium and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Agarwala and Ghumaan_Covid-19_Impact of Covid-19 on women in South Asia

The UK will begin delivering nine million doses of coronavirus vaccine to "the most vulnerable countries" this week, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has said

Covid: UK sends nine million vaccines to vulnerable countries

https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-021-11166-0

Covid-status certification – certificates for those who test negative for the SARS-CoV-2 virus, test positive for antibodies, or who have been vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2 – has been proposed to enable safer access to a range of activities. Realising these benefits will depend in part upon the behavioural and social impacts of certification. The aim of this rapid review was to describe public attitudes towards certification, and its possible impact on uptake of testing and vaccination, protective behaviours, and crime.

Behavioural responses to Covid-19 health certification: a rapid review

Pfizer Inc.’s vaccine was less effective at keeping people from getting the coronavirus in Israel in recent weeks, but it continues to provide a strong shield against severe Covid-19, according to government data.The vaccine protected 64% of people against the illness between June 6 and early July, down from a previous 94%. The drop was observed as the delta variant was spreading in Israel, the Health Ministry said. It also coincided with the lifting of virus restrictions at the start of June.

Pfizer Shot Halts Severe Illness in Israel as Delta Spreads

I figured it was best to make a comprehensive thread concerning the study out of The Lancet concerning variant B.1.617.2 (Delta) after mRNA vaccination to help clear up some confusion. Most aren’t breaking it down into layman’s terms, so allow me. Let’s discuss.

One of the earliest people to get Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine was a nurse in Tennessee, who fainted after getting the shot on live television in December. The incident sparked rumors that she had died and that the vaccine was a tool of genocide. Five months later the nurse, who is not dead, continues to be bombarded by messages from strangers on social media. They send condolences to her family or demand details about the incident. Oddly, they often do so in German, Italian, or Portuguese.The international fixation on this case follows what is becoming a common pattern. U.S.-based social media users begin spreading misleading or false information, which then moves to other countries, according to researchers studying the rumors. The U.S. may not yet have figured out an efficient way to distribute shots to other countries, but it has become a major exporter of misinformation.

Social Networks Are Exporting Disinformation About Covid Vaccines

xclusive: Almost half of those refusing vaccine say a lack of information is the problem

10% of people of colour in Great Britain would refuse Covid jab - YouGov data

This article is more than 3 months oldExclusive: hopes raised for vaccine safety, although children, some of whom have cystic fibrosis, were not part of a clinical trial

Israel says 600 children given Covid jab had no serious side-effects

The TUC has urged the government to put pressure on employers who it claims are hindering the UK’s vaccine rollout by refusing to give staff paid time off to receive and recover from their Covid jabs.The trade union body said in a poll of private sector employers it found fewer than half were offering staff paid time-off to attend their vaccination appointments.

TUC says Covid vaccine efforts hindered by lack of paid time off for jab

We examine the role of overconfidence in news judgment using two large nationally representative survey samples. First, we show that three in four Americans overestimate their relative ability to distinguish between legitimate and false news headlines; respondents place themselves 22 percentiles higher than warranted on average. This overconfidence is, in turn, correlated with consequential differences in real-world beliefs and behavior. We show that overconfident individuals are more likely to visit untrustworthy websites in behavioral data; to fail to successfully distinguish between true and false claims about current events in survey questions; and to report greater willingness to like or share false content on social media, especially when it is politically congenial. In all, these results paint a worrying picture: The individuals who are least equipped to identify false news content are also the least aware of their own limitations and, therefore, more susceptible to believing it and spreading it further

https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2019527118

Overconfidence in news judgments is associated with false news susceptibility

The US, South Africa and European Union will temporarily stop the rollout of the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) Covid jab, after reports of rare blood clotting.Six cases were detected in more than 6.8 million doses of the vaccine, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said.Johnson & Johnson has paused its EU rollout, which started this week

Johnson & Johnson vaccine paused over rare blood clots

SARS-CoV-2 has been in the human population for more than a year now, causing severe disease in some and resulting in a pandemic that continues to put severe strain on economies and healthcare infrastructures worldwide.1 In the UK, the first three vaccines have emergency use authorisation, and a national rollout is in progress. Many other countries are also instigating large scale vaccination programmes. These vaccines express the spike glycoprotein, the major target of neutralising antibodies in a natural infection. The vaccines protect against disease,234 and preliminary data suggest that transmission is also decreased after vaccination.5Current vaccines are based on a version of the spike glycoprotein from the start of the outbreak, however, and central questions remain around the ability of an old version of the spike glycoprotein to generate protective antibodies against newer emerging variants. The linked paper by Challen and colleagues (doi:10.1136/bmj.n579) suggesting that variant of concern B.1.1.7 might be associated with increased mortality adds urgency to these questions.6

doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.n771

Covid-19: variants and vaccination

I got my first COVID-19 vaccine recently. The whole experience was tremendously routine: I showed my registration, stood in a waiting area, saw a nurse, got the jab, waited 15 minutes in case of an adverse reaction, and left.Oh, and I got a button.The waiting period, of course, was when it happened.James, said the pestilential voice inside my head, while I was scrolling on my phone. James!What is it?What if they microchipped you? You know, Bill Gates, with the 5Gs and the Wi-Fis?Shut up, I’m looking at cat memes.James! You design wearable devices for a living. You know that microchipping someone is possible.Yeah, of course it is. They didn’t.So prove it, big boy.It’s true, I am the chief scientific officer of a data company that makes wearable devices. I’ve spent the past 15 years sticking tech on people, and in people. Thinking about how body-mounted devices work takes up basically my whole day, and one of my favorite mental exercises is seeing if I can pry practical insights from the wild and irresponsible conceptions of the smooth-brained garbage-people on the internet.Ergo: Had Uncle Bill microchipped me?

Putting Microchips in Vaccines Is a Terrible Idea, When You Think About It

DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa2101765

As mass vaccination campaigns against coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) commence worldwide, vaccine effectiveness needs to be assessed for a range of outcomes across diverse populations in a noncontrolled setting. In this study, data from Israel’s largest health care organization were used to evaluate the effectiveness of the BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine

BNT162b2 mRNA Covid-19 Vaccine in a Nationwide Mass Vaccination Setting

In recent years, researchers have used artificial intelligence to improve translation between programming languages or automatically fix problems. The AI system DrRepair, for example, has been shown to solve most issues that spawn error messages. But some researchers dream of the day when AI can write programs based on simple descriptions from non-experts.On Tuesday, Microsoft and OpenAI shared plans to bring GPT-3, one of the world’s most advanced models for generating text, to programming based on natural language descriptions. This is the first commercial application of GPT-3 undertaken since Microsoft invested $1 billion in OpenAI last year and gained exclusive licensing rights to GPT-3.

AI Could Soon Write Code Based on Ordinary Language

A hospital trust in the Midlands has said that it is working to understand why some of its staff remain unvaccinated against covid-19 after preliminary findings from a study showed that uptake was especially low among doctors and ethnic minority staff.The analysis, published as a preprint on 13 February,1 looked at 19 044 staff at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust who had all been offered a vaccination since 12 December. As of 3 February, 65% (12 278) had received at least one dose of vaccine. But this masked substantial variation, with 71% (8147 of 11 485) of white staff taking up the vaccine, compared with 59% (2843 of 4863) of South Asian staff and 37% (499 of 1357) of black staff. Overall, 36% of the trust’s staff are from ethnic minority backgrounds.

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.n460

Covid:19: Ethnic minority health staff are less likely to take up vaccine, early data show