Fifth of carers still haven’t had first jab

ONE in five care home staff in England have yet to have a coronavirus jab, according to official figures.

Vaccine take-up among older adult care home staff was 79 per cent – compared with 94 per cent of eligible residents.

Just 68 per cent of eligible staff in London care homes are estimated to have received their first jab.

And in the borough of Lambeth, little over half – 52 per cent – of care staff had been given their first jab by April 4.

Take-up was also low in Luton, Bedfordshire, where the figure stood at 59 per cent, and the London borough of Wandsworth where it was 60 per cent, NHS England

‘There’s still more work to do’

said. But Blackpool had the highest proportion of care staff taking the vaccine, at 91 per cent.

Care home residents and staff were in the first priority group for a coronavirus vaccine, meaning all those eligible should have been offered a jab by the middle of February.

Staff are classed as eligible for the vaccine if they have not had Covid-19 in the previous 28 days. Health Secretary Matt Hancock said: ‘i’m very pleased to say that the uptake of the vaccine in care home workers is now 80 per cent, four in five.’

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘There’s still more work to do but i’m very grateful to the care home workers who’ve been coming forward.’

Asked whether jabs could be made compulsory for care workers, he said: ‘We haven’t made an announcement on that, we haven’t said anything about that. But the uptake has been going up and that’s very important.’

Boris Johnson said last month it was ‘wholly responsible’ for care home firms to consider requiring vaccination.

Many care providers have said they plan to adopt a ‘jab for jobs’ policy for employees who are not exempt.

it comes as Mr Hancock played down the significance of a study suggesting the uK will reach herd immunity today. Herd immunity comes when enough people are immune to the coronavirus, after being vaccinated or having had Covid, that it is unlikely to keep spreading.

Modelling by university College London suggests that point has been reached, protecting the population. But the Health Secretary is resisting calls to speed up the easing of the lockdown, and the finding has also been met with scepticism by several scientists.

Mr Hancock told LBC Radio: ‘i was told by some scientists we were going to have herd immunity in May, then June, then later… i prefer to watch the data. We are on track to meet the road map – that is our goal.

‘We have taken the right track in plotting our course to freedom carefully because we want it to be irreversible.

‘We have seen what happens when this virus gets going, we are seeing it getting going right now on the continent and elsewhere and some of the scenes are really appalling.’ The uCL figures, published online yesterday, suggest 73.4 per cent of the population will be immune this week.

The percentage needed for herd immunity fluctuates based on the risk of transmission. The data is based on factors including daily positive tests and people’s movements, which help to indicate how much they are coming into contact with others.

However the Office for National Statistics reported that, based on antibody tests, around 54 per cent of people in England were immune in the week ending March 14.

And experts have also pointed out that people in areas with low infection rates have much less protection, making an announcement of herd immunity – which does not consider varying rates of immunity across the country – ‘overly optimistic’.