NOW THAT COVID is no longer a threat, your life is pretty well back to normal, right? 

Wrong, if you live in a northeast borough, and as if to emphasise that, the UK Government has started publicising advice from worried locals who are qualified to know why the pandemic is still a threat. 

Why, then? A short answer is the reluctance among some groups to take the injection. In Hackney, for example, 119,183 people — 59% — are yet to be double-vaccinated. That’s about 20% below the national total, and it is despite a campaign led by health director Dr Sandra Husbands to target “extremely vulnerable” Hackneyites. 

In adjacent boroughs, eg, Tower Hamlets, the double-vax figures are also disturbing: 184,500.

Hence the appearance of government-sponsored get-the-vax advertisements that feature, for example, Dr Farzana Hussain, of the Project Surgery at Plaistow E13 0LN, 

Dr Hussain was so worried about low takeup that since winter she has been personally contacting surgery clients from the most at-risk groups of people, urging them to get their first dose. 

The NHS said: “Dr Hussain is among a number of senior medics and other public figures to raise concerns about a lack of uptake among certain ethnicities, including people of African, eastern European and south Asian heritage.”

Dr Hussain said: “Covid infection rates for bame (black, Asian and other ethnic groups) people are higher and are more likely to cause death and serious illness.”

As winter nears, some of us might be wishing the Government were as pro-active as the doctor. Why, for example, has it not signed up slebs for online and broadcast-media ads? Pleas by celebrities such as, say, popsinger Stormzy, tennis sensation Emma Raducanu and footballer Phil Foden could impress even the most gullible of conspiracy-theory victims. 

David Altheer 121021

* Vaccination and other statistics cited above were well-sourced at time of writing but of course change as new data are released. For Hackney’s vaccination programme press this council link; for Tower Hamlets; Newham; and Waltham Forest

* Backstory: Hackney’s selfish 17,000 threaten Freedom Day; More than 60% of ultra-orthodox groups Covid; Abbott’s Covid appeal; Helping street people through the virus 

* Pictures © DavidAltheer@gmail.com, apart from the Covid-symbol above and of Dr Husbands. All available for sale via that eddress. Emboldened underscored words in most cases indicate a hyperlink.

* Links to articles in The Guardian do not imply any approval of the newspaper’s historic involvement with slavery.