A copy of the presentation will be made available prior to the meeting.

The Committee received an update from Covid-19 from Somen Banerjee – Director of Public Health, the main points of the questioning maybe summarised as follows:

The Committee:

v  Asked if vaccines would be “thrown away” rather than being given as second doses or to ‘other cohorts’.? Noted that with the Pfizer vaccine there is a risk of wasting the vaccine because of its short shelf-life of 3.5 days and therefore the GP Care Group has had a group of people who they can be contacted at short notice and to date agencies have managed to not waste a significant percentage of the Pfizer vaccine and the system does appear to be working.  Also, when there is an increased availability of the AstraZeneca vaccine this will not be such an issue given that it can be stored and transported at regular fridge temperature like flu vaccines, with a shelf life of over six months.

v  Asked if the vaccine uptake has been lowering among minority ethnic groups and what are the barriers to uptake within the Covid-19 vaccination programme and are there any comparisons in the uptake of the Influenza vaccine. Noted that Initial data is showing lower rates for those from BAME groups aged 80 plus compared to those aged 80 plus and white.

v  Commented that the testing positivity rate seemed high and wondered how confident can LBTH be in testing assisting in the controlling the spread of Covid-19. Noted that (i) overall that there is a high level of willingness to take up the Covid-19 vaccines. However, marked differences exist by ethnicity, with the Black population the most likely to be Covid-19 vaccine hesitant followed by the South Asian community ; and (ii) there is an element of people having concerns about the vaccine however it is important to recognise that a key factor in the over eighties is that people want to go to community-based vaccination sites.  However, the GP Care Group will be contacting those individuals who are not taking up vaccine and talking through what the issues are and how do to resolve those issues.

v  Commented that there has been additional Government funding for increasing that vaccine uptake and therefore how will LBTH be making the decisions about how such funding will be used in the most effective way to target those communities where there is any vaccine hesitancy?

v  Commented that whilst generally communities have high positivity towards taking vaccines agencies should still be pushing testing above national average and seeking to expand the testing capacity.

v  Noted initially the expectation was that high levels were anticipated in the Bangladeshi community, but testing rates were lower.  Whilst now they are higher by undertaking testing in those areas where there is a high prevalence of the virus which has increased the uptake of testing by those communities.

v  Noted that one should be wary about using the Influenza  vaccination data as a proxy for issues around Covid e.g. for the Black population there has always been a low uptake for Influenza vaccinations and as mentioned earlier this is also the case for Covid but for the South Asian community their Influenza  uptake has been better than the average which is the opposite of what is being seen with Covid. Also, with the Influenza vaccine you can get that through the local GP or the Community Pharmacist which might be underpinning the inequalities in the uptake of vaccines.

v  Noted that alongside dealing with the numbers of Covid patients the NHS must meet the needs of patients requiring admission for other forms of treatment.

v  Asked if t the Nightingale hospital at London’s ExCel was at capacity and noted that whilst it was near full capacity that facility takes in patients from an area wider than Tower Hamlets.

v  Noted that from mid-February 2021 those residents with underlying health conditions e.g. diabetes, high cholesterol, or asthma will be vaccinated.

v  Agreed that it is important that it is important this group of residents vaccinated as quickly as possible.

v  Noted that work is ongoing with the local GP Care Group and pharmacies to offer the coronavirus vaccine to help with the Government's aim of vaccinating everyone in the most vulnerable groups identified by the middle of February 2021.

v  Noted that considerable work is being done by the Council’s Divisional Director of Communications and his Team with both national and local media to ensure that there are effective communications to help overcome challenges such as vaccine hesitancy and to increase uptake e.g. Bangla TV the Bengali language television channel.

Accordingly, the Chair thanked Somen Banerjee – Director of Public Health for his presentation and for the high level of detail that he had provided.