Clinical commissioning groups across the Humber, Coast and Vale NHS have come together to coordinate and promote vaccine information videos featuring local GPs. These videos promote important messages in multiple languages to improve Covid vaccine confidence, by giving factual information about the safety and effectiveness of our UK vaccines, and to dispel any vaccine myths, especially amongst our black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) communities.
A study called OpenSafely, using data from many GP practices, reveals some differences in vaccination coverage between people with different ethnic backgrounds, and highlights other demographic and clinic factors. The study, with weekly reports, can be viewed here.
Humber, Coast and Vale is proud to be a diverse area with just over 3.5% of the population being of non-white ethnicity. For the period 8 December 2020 to 28 February 2021, 601,043 cumulative total doses of the vaccine (both first and second doses) were administered across the Humber, Coast and Vale. For the same period, the percentage of white people vaccinated with at least one dose was 86%, compared with 1% BAME and 12% other/unknown. Though the number of other/unknown is high, making the data difficult to analyse, 1% BAME is much lower than we would like.
This concern is felt nationally and is especially troubling when we know that BAME communities are very vulnerable to Covid-19 and have suffered a disproportionate impact from the disease.
It is paramount that we work with all our communities to ensure as many people as possible have the vaccine. This includes giving people the opportunity to understand the importance of having their vaccination, by addressing concerns around the safety and the efficacy of the vaccine and by disproving some of the vaccine misinformation that is out there.
The languages covered in the videos featuring our Humber, Coast and Vale GPs currently include Arabic, Bengali, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Igbo, Malay, Mandarin, Pashto, Pidgin English, Polish, Punjabi, Romanian and Urdu. We aim to reproduce the messages in as many languages as we can, with more videos coming online soon.
Some of the key messages in our videos include:
- The vaccine is a safe and effective way to combat coronavirus
- It will help protect people and their loved ones
- We need to trust our senior scientific and medical bodies who tell us these vaccines are safe
- The vaccines do not contain any animal products, human embryo cells, microchips or tracking devices
- When people receive their invitation to have the vaccine, they should take up the offer
- People should tell their friends and family when they have had the vaccine, to instil confidence.
We will continue to reach out to as many people as possible in our communities to ensure everyone has the opportunity to hear and understand factual information about the vaccine.
Please help us by sharing the videos either via the direct YouTube playlist link, or via social media channels:
–Twitter
–Facebook