UK survey: Ethnic minorities less likely to take COVID jab

LONDON (AP) — People from ethnic minority backgrounds or with lower incomes are less likely to take the coronavirus vaccine being rolled out in Britain, research suggested Wednesday, raising concerns about whether the jab would reach the communities that have been hit disproportionately hard by the pandemic.

A survey by Britain’s Royal Society for Public Health said that while three-quarters of those polled would take a COVID-19 vaccine if advised to do so by a doctor, that figure fell to 57% among Black people and those from Asian and ethnic minority backgrounds.

The body also said the survey “revealed significantly more hesitancy among lower income groups” — with 70% of lowest earners likely to agree to the jab, compared to 84% of highest earners.

Public health experts and doctors say the findings are concerning, but unsurprising. They align with consistently lower uptake rates of other vaccines, like the measles and flu jabs, among ethnic minority communities and in poorer neighborhoods, they say.

That reluctance — a result of factors like public health messaging not reaching the communities and mistrust of authority based on past experiences — has been exacerbated by misinformation and anti-vaccination campaigns on social media.

“We have known for years that different communities have different levels of satisfaction in the National Health Service,” said Christina Marriott, chief executive of the Royal Society for Public Health. “More recently we have seen anti-vaccination messages have been specifically targeted at different groups, including different ethnic or religious communities.”

Britain on Dec. 8 became the first country in the world to roll out the coronavirus vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, which has an efficacy rate of around 95%. The government is first targeting...