'It's time to talke about vaccines' leaflet

A5 double sided colour leaflet 'It's time to talk about vaccines', advertising an online event by Lambeth Council and Lambeth Together on 22 March 2021

Around 90 people attended the online event ‘It’s Time to talk about the Vaccines’ on 22 March 2021 run by Lambeth Council and Lambeth Together. Professor Kevin Fenton, the Regional Director for London for Public Health England joined Hiten Dodhia – Lambeth Council Consultant in Public Health; Professor Ray Chaudhuri, Clinical Director, Parkinson Foundation Centre of Excellence at King’s College; Dr Di Aitken, Lambeth GP; The Reverend Ivelaw Bowman, Community leader; and Juliet Amoa, Associate Director of Community Health and Engagement at Lambeth Council to answer questions. Residents were encouraged to submit questions in advanced and during the online event. Having a COVID-19 vaccine is a choice. Each person has their own reasons as to why they may question the speed of the development and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines and potential side-effects. Institutional and structural racism within healthcare systems and historic abuse during clinical trials also led to mistrust.

According to the Office of National Statistics in the first three months of the vaccine roll out - 90.2% of all residents in England aged 70 years and over had received at least one dose of a coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine. The lowest vaccination rates were observed among people identifying as Black African and Black Caribbean (58.8% and 68.7% respectively), followed by people from Bangladeshi (72.7%) and Pakistani (74.0%) backgrounds. The COVID-19 pandemic disproportionally affected these communities as they are often key workers, and were also more likely to require hospital treatment for COVID-19.