GP’S CALLS HELP CURE HANG-UPS OVER JABS
A HERO GP persuaded hundreds of vaccine hesitant patients to get jabbed – by simply phoning them
Professor Azhar Farooqi and his staff called 300 people to reassure them the vaccine was safe. And as a result, 95% of them – 285 people – booked a first dose.
His scheme has now been rolled out across
Leicester, which had some of the UK’S highest Covid rates when the pandemic took hold in 2020. Prof
Farooqi said: “The vaccine is the only route out of this for us.
“Nationally, the vaccination programme has clearly been pretty successful – and most of that has been done by GPS.
“But although uptake has generally been good, there are some areas where it is really poor. “The real worry is it has been poor in areas which are socially and economically deprived, or with high black, Asian and minority ethnic populations. And it’s a concern because these are the communities
CHINA ended 2021 with its biggest tally of Covid any cases for
seven-day period since cracked it ruthlessl
down on the country’s
National Health first wave
Commission yesterday
175 new community rep in infections, bringing mainland China in the
the past week to 1,151. Australia also started new 2022 with a record
nu cases as an outbreak
Aussies grew in the eastern
have queued for hours turned away for PCR tests or
from clinics. Many still tests taken before await resu
Christmas. Waiting times testing clinics have fo
risen across New South Victoria, Queensland
and South Australia. And in the US thousands international of domestic a
flights were axed in holiday week the
as cases of the
Omicron variant rose. most affected by hospitalisations and deaths. We were worried people who really needed the vaccine wouldn’t get it.”
He added of the phone calls: “You can’t be too dogmatic – this isn’t about lecturing them. You’re there to listen to their concerns, then explain why what they have been thinking isn’t quite right.
“It has been amazing. As GPS we know if we ring people up, they will often do things as we have those relationships but I don’t think we expected this level of success.”