Vaccine hesitancy remains extremely low in the UK, despite concerns over hospitalised patients in some areas who have not taken the Covid-19 jab, No 10 has said.
No 10 said it had deployed thousands of additional vaccine doses to areas that had reported a sharp increase in the number of cases due to new variants originally detected in India, saying action would be taken to tackle rising cases.
The health secretary, Matt Hancock, said on Sunday that out of the 18 patients in hospital in Bolton, one of the hotspots for the virus, five had been vaccinated. Of the remainder, he said “the vast majority” had been eligible for the vaccine but had not taken it so far.
Yet both Downing Street and local MPs cautioned on Monday that the public should not draw damaging conclusions about anti-vaccination sentiment, particularly among minority ethnic communities in two key towns, Bolton and Blackburn.
Bolton has the highest case rate in the country as of 11 May, with 255 cases per 100,000 residents, though its vaccination rate was in line with the national average, with 88.9% of people aged 40 and over having received their first dose. The rate is significantly higher than parts of London, including Westminster, where the rate is 63%.
While the Bolton-wide vaccination rate is in line with the England average of 89.8%, there are large variations within the local authority. In Lever Edge, which has the highest case rate in Bolton, 84.7% of those aged 40 and over are vaccinated.
Case rates in Bolton are significantly higher in areas of high deprivation, while vaccination rates are lower in poorer areas and in those with higher black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) populations, in line with national trends.
Yasmin Qureshi, the Labour MP for Bolton South East, said the issue in the town was “incredibly complex” and it was “wrong” to suggest people from BAME backgrounds were to blame for the increased cases of the B.1.617.2 variant first detected in India.
Qureshi claimed there had been problems with the rollout of the vaccine in her constituency, something which she had raised with board members of the Bolton clinical commissioning group (CCG), NHS England and the local authority in February.
In letters seen by the Guardian sent to the Bolton CCG and the Bolton GP Federation in February, Qureshi said people were struggling to get the jab, and called for vaccination centres to be “more rooted” in particular communities with high levels of deprivation.
“Essentially people who had no access to their own transport were having to catch two, sometimes three buses, to get to a vaccination centre,” she said. “I told them that we needed a centre closer because this could have resolved the issue of uptake … This wasn’t just BAME people, I have lots of white, working-class people in my constituency who were also struggling for access.”
Huge queues formed outside a mobile testing centre now set up at a Bolton secondary school, the Essa academy in Great Lever, which is part of Qureshi’s constituency. The pop-up site has been set up specifically in response to the spread of the new variant.
“Clearly people want the vaccine and now that we have a site right in the middle of the community people have turned up en masse,” Qureshi said. “It’s not a case of hesitancy any more.”
Conservative MPs in Bolton said there should be no delay in lifting further restrictions. Chris Green, the MP for Bolton West and Atherton, said there should be “no delays, no turning back, let’s return to normal and stay normal” and said people who needed to seek routine medical treatment for other conditions would suffer longer under lengthier restrictions.
His fellow Conservative Mark Logan, the Bolton North East MP, urged the government to step up vaccination in his town, saying it had remained under restrictions for longer than most of the country. “Bolton must be fast-tracked for vaccinations and we must get that first dose out to all over-18s by the end of the month – as a priority,” he said.
Mark Harper, the chair of the 60-strong group of MPs in the Covid Recovery Group, which has urged the faster lifting of restrictions, tweeted a warning shot about how MPs might see any delay to unlocking perceived as being linked to vaccine hesitancy.
“Wider society’s fate can’t be sealed by the actions of a small group of people, whatever their reasoning,” he wrote.
Boris Johnson’s spokesperson said there were no plans to offer new incentives for vaccinations but that the government was still co-ordinating significant outreach efforts in different communities to encourage people to receive the vaccine.
“It’s really important when we’re talking about hesitancy to highlight the fact that we have one of the most enthusiastic populations for vaccine uptake in the world and that is only increased as we’ve progressed on the rollout,” he said.
“We’re not complacent and there are a number of different approaches we’re taking with vaccine-hesitant groups to engage in social media with community leaders, directly you know, using trusted voices and clinical voices, and that work continues.”
The spokesperson said work to engage with different communities had been successful so far. “We know there is continually more work to do,” he said.
“We have deployed thousands of additional doses to the areas involved so they can do this work of getting vaccines to people.”