Up to 47% of ‘at risk’ ethnic minorities in UK’s second city have not yet had vaccine
Disturbing Birmingham City Council study reveals scale of problem as widespread hesitancy threatens to derail attempts to ease lockdown restrictions
THE alarming extent of the low uptake of the Covid vaccine among ethnic minorities in Britain’s second city can be revealed today.
More than one third of residents of Pakistani and Bangladeshi descent in Birmingham most at risk of dying if they catch the virus – those over 70 and the extremely vulnerable – have not yet had their first dose of the jab, according to a study by Birmingham City Council.
The figures are even worse for Birmingham’s black population: 47 per cent of black African and 41 per cent of black Caribbean people in the top priority vaccine groups have yet to be inoculated.
In stark contrast, just 9 per cent of the most vulnerable who identify as white British or mixed British in the city have not received their first shot.
The Mail on Sunday can reveal that the worrying gulf in vaccination rates in Birmingham is mirrored in other areas with large ethnic minority populations and is threatening to derail attempts to ease lockdown restrictions.
An analysis of NHS data by this newspaper reveals that 22 per cent of England’s white population had received their first dose of vaccine by last weekend, compared to 16 per cent of the Asian population and 11.5 per cent of the black population. Health officials fear Covid
‘Conspiracy theories and misplaced safety fears’
would once again rip through inner cities if restrictions are eased while large numbers of vulnerable people remain unprotected. Death rates during the pandemic have already been highest among black and Asian ethnic groups.
Conspiracy theories and misplaced safety fears fuelled by fake news and a mistrust of the Government are among the reasons for ‘vaccine hesitancy’.
In an emotional appeal, Birmingham’s Lord Mayor Mohammed Azim last night urged residents to ignore the vaccine myths and misi nformation peddled on social media. ‘The vaccine is perfectly safe,’ he said. ‘My wife has had both. I have had my first and am looking forward to the second soon.’
The Birmingham Council report, based on vaccination rates up to last Tuesday, reveals how deprived wards with large ethnic minority communities are dramatically lagging behind areas with predominantly white populations.
In Sparkbrook, an area with a large South Asian population and home to the city’s ‘Balti Triangle’ of restaurants, 43 per cent of those aged 70 or over have not been vaccinated. Barely ten miles away in the Sutton Mere area of Sutton Coldfield, a predominately white and affluent suburb, just 5.5 per cent of those aged 80 and over and 7.5 per cent of those aged between 70 and 79 have not yet been inoculated.
Outside Sparkbrook’s community centre on Stratford Road yesterday a group of young mothers told the MoS they will not have the jab and repeated a string of myths and misconceptions about the vaccine. ‘There is evidence that pork gelatine has been added to the vaccination and my uncle has said he will not be having it because of the alcohol content,’ Elhim Hussein, 26, said. Manja Bashal, 23, said she would only consider being vaccinated if community leaders said it was necessary: ‘ Having the jab when we have no i dea about whether it will reduce our immunity is not an option for me.’
Meanwhile, taxi driver Amir Zehn, 43, said: ‘I would need to be assured that there was no risk to my long term health before I even considered it. And I know my parents and extended family feel the same.
‘ It’s not that we are not educated because we watch the news like everyone else but I don’t think there is enough information about the vaccine to let people make decisions based on clinical facts.’
Sparkbrook pharmacist Mahammed Maqsood said he’d been urging locals to get their jabs. His assistant, Tahmina Khatun, said some were clearly worried about conspiracy theories circulating online. ‘I have heard women asking if the vaccine makes you infertile or are they trying to kill us,’ she said. ‘Some of this is about ignorance or not knowing how to find out more.’
There was, however, no such hesitancy in leafy Mere Green. ‘You are definitely pushing an open door in this area in terms of getting people to have the vaccine,’ Meirion Jenkins, 61, a Conservative councillor said.
There are similar stark differences in the vaccine take-up rate elsewhere in the city, according to the council’s report.
In Handsworth, an inner city area where 60 per cent of the population is Asian and almost 20 per cent of the population is black, 30 per cent of t hose over 70 or who are extremely clinically vulnerable have not been inoculated.
Yet in nearby Oscott – just four miles away where the population is
‘We are doing all we can to reassure people’
84 per cent white – only 14 per cent of those in the most vulnerable groups have not received their first jab. Dr Nasir Awan, an academic and Vice President of the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce whose brother died of Covid-19 last year, said much more needs to be done to reassure ethnic communities that the vaccines are safe. ‘People are afraid and it’s not just the older generation,’ he said. ‘As community leaders we are doing everything we can to reassure people that the kind of fake news they are reading about the vaccines is untrue.’
Maxie Hayles, a veteran campaigner for racial equality, said concerns about the vaccine in the black community are partly linked to historic cases of medical research abuse in the USA.
Public health officials there oversaw a 40- year programme to observe the effects of untreated syphilis on black men in the socalled Tuskegee Experiment, which ended in 1972. ‘I have heard black people say if the vaccine is any good, why is it being offered to us?’ he told the MoS. Kirk Dawes, 63, a former detective with West Midlands Police who ran a pioneering unit to combat gun crime in Birmingham, has lost five members of his extended family to Covid.
‘ I can understand why some black people are sceptical because s ome ol der generations have been utilised in experiments in America. But a lot of this is born out of ignorance and a lack of trust in politicians.’
Ian Ward, the Labour leader of Birmingham Council, said the local authority would use the new data ‘to work with residents, NHS partners, community leaders and the Government to address the issue of vaccine uptake.’