Nan’s the word when it comes to getting young adults inoculated

GRANDPARENTS and parents are to be relied upon to persuade younger adults to get injected with the Government set to double the rate to hit its July target for all over 18s to be vaccinated.

Ministers are working on a “Listen to Nan” campaign to urge pensioners and parents who have been inoculated to ensure their families are too.

The Queen said that having the vaccine “didn’t hurt at all” as she encouraged the hesitant to “think about other people rather than themselves”.

One minister said that younger adults were more likely to listen to older members of their family than Government messaging or advertisements. They said: “The most influential people in a decision whether to take a jab or not are the people that they love, and that they are with. The fact that grandparents have taken a jab means parents are more likely to take it and the kids are more likely to take it. That matters much more than anything else.”

Almost two million people aged 60 to 63 will be invited to a jab this week as the NHS programme gains fresh momentum. Ministers are hoping to build on the roll-out which has seen nearly nine out of 10 people agree to be vaccinated and use that to impress on young adults the need to be vaccinated.

The plan will most probably need to be deployed to reach the 18-to-30-yearolds in the final group of adults to be vaccinated before the end of July. The rate of vaccinations is set to surge this week as the NHS starts second doses for people who have waited 12 weeks since their first. Vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi described the next few weeks as like “starting a supermarket in a month and then expanding it by 20pc a week”.

He said he is planning to double the rate to hit the July target for all over-18s to have received a jab adding: “We will see an uplift in March in terms of that rate of vaccination to be able to hit that mid-April target [to vaccinate all the over-50s].

“If you are having to do second doses as of March and continue the pace of first doses you have got to double the vaccination rate. We had to build our infrastructure so when the vaccines come we can deploy at speed.”

The Government has a plan for community champions to encourage vaccine take-up among BAME groups.