The Indian variant of coronavirus is the dominant strain in Bolton and Blackburn, with ministers frustrated that people who turned down the jab are now being hospitalised with Covid-19.
Matt Hancock, the health secretary, said that hospitalisations among the unvaccinated in the two towns show the importance of getting the jab as analysis by The Times shows that those Bolton neighbourhoods with the lowest vaccination rates have the highest rates of coronavirus.
Twenty-somethings in the town were still reporting being offered jabs yesterday. Vaccination rates quadrupled in Bolton over the weekend, with 6,200 doses administered. Clusters of the faster-spreading variant have been found in 86 areas around the country and known cases are up 76 per cent since Thursday, Hancock said.
Most of the 19 people hospitalised in Bolton were eligible for vaccination but had not had one. Five had received one dose and one had received two doses.
“The majority have not been vaccinated and, of them, most of them could have been vaccinated, which is frustrating to see, but is also a message to everyone,” Hancock told MPs. “It just reinforces the message that people should come forward and get vaccinated because that is the best way to protect everybody.”
He added: “To anyone who feels hesitant about getting the vaccine, just look at what is happening in Bolton, where the majority of people in hospital with coronavirus were eligible for the jab but have chosen not yet to have the jab and have ended up in hospital — some of them in intensive care.”
Downing Street has given warning that vaccinated people will be hospitalised if the variant produces a big surge in infections; it said that people who refused to be vaccinated were putting those around them at risk.
The prime minister’s spokesman urged them “to think of others as well as themselves when considering whether to get the vaccine. That’s what we’re seeing the vast majority of the public doing and we want that to continue.”
He added that a surge in cases would lead to “a situation where not just individuals who are vaccine resistant or vaccine hesitant, or those who have not sought out their first jab, might catch coronavirus, but those who have had the first dose or those who have had two doses but for whom vaccine efficacy is reduced. That would then lead to increased hospitalisations and put unsustainable pressure on our NHS.”
Only 37 per cent of the population of Lever Edge in Bolton — which has the highest weekly coronavirus rate in the area of 896 per 100,000 people — has been vaccinated. The average in Bolton is 50 per cent.
Simon Clarke, of the University of Reading, said that it was an “entirely plausible hypothesis” that low vaccination rates might be allowing coronavirus to spread more easily, but said that correlation could not prove causation.
The analysis showed that the three neighbourhoods with most coronavirus cases had the highest proportion of black and minority ethnic residents, at 57 to 67 per cent. Studies have shown that people from non-white backgrounds are more likely to be vaccine hesitant.
Last week Bolton health chiefs said that deprivation was one of the main factors behind poor vaccine uptake. Dr Helen Wall, senior officer responsible for the programme at Bolton NHS, said that a vaccine bus was being sent to areas with very low rates.
Cases in Bolton have risen more quickly among young people, with 537 per 100,000 aged 10 to 19 infected in the week to May 12, compared with only 16.7 per 100,000 over-70s.
Yesterday a steady stream of people attended the walk-in vaccination centre at Essa Academy in Lever Edge.
Levi Glaister, 18, said: “My mum found out you could just turn up, so she told me to get myself down here.”
Thomas Nelson, 28, a factory worker, said: “I just thought, best to get the vaccine as soon as I can.”
Hollie Robinson, 21, said: “I really didn’t want to wait until October . . . It was all very quick and painless.”
Calls for flexibility on age
Areas where new variants are on a surge must not offer vaccination to all over-18s, ministers have insisted (Chris Smyth writes).
The Times reported yesterday that people in their twenties and early thirties were able to get vaccinated in Bolton, while Tony Blair and Sadiq Khan added to calls for more local flexibility. But Matt Hancock, the health secretary, said that sticking to age-based priority lists would “save the most lives”.
The joint committee on vaccination and immunisation has advised that focusing on second doses or the most vulnerable and first doses for those eligible was a better use of resources, the government said.
Hancock said: “The approach is to make sure we get as many second vaccinations done as possible, as many first vaccinations among the vulnerable groups, and then as many vaccinations as possible for eligible groups under the age of 50.”
He added: “That is what is most likely to save most lives. The second jab is absolutely vital and the first jab for anybody over 50 could be the difference between life and death.”
Blair told Times Radio that the government needed a “differentiated approach” in hotspot areas, saying: “It’s probably sensible when you go into those areas not simply to vaccinate the risk population, which is usually the more elderly, but to make sure that you’re reaching the younger people as well, who can spread it”. Khan, the mayor of London, called for the government to be “nimble” in areas where variants were spreading.
