Calls grow to vaccinate poorer areas first as Covid cases stop falling in parts of north

Leader of one of England’s hardest hit cities demands rethink of jab rollout

A street vendor selling domestic masks and visors works in Preston town centre during the coronavirus pandemic on 10 August (Getty Images)

The leader of one of the English city’s hammered hardest by the coronavirus has joined calls for poorer areas be prioritised in the next stage of the vaccine rollout.

Matthew Brown, leader of Preston City Council – which currently has the country’s ninth highest infection rate – said those living in deprived regions and neighbourhoods should be given the jab first.

“People on low incomes are two-and-a-half times more likely to be affected by Covid and certain parts of the BAME community even more so,” he said. “We need to prioritise based around the reality that if you’re well off and live in an area where it’s quite spacious, the virus is not going to spread as much, whereas if you’ve got a lot of terraced houses, it is going to spread.”

His intervention will add growing pressure on the government to reassess the next stage of the vaccine programme - which will be almost exclusively ordered by age, rather than social and economic vulnerability to Covid-19.

Preston was one of only a dozen places in the country to see a rise in coronavirus cases in the first week of this month - with 339.5 cases per 100,000 recorded in the seven days leading up to 7 February.

Although that rate has since come down to 267.6 per 100,000 over a seven day period, the city - as it has been for much of the pandemic - is well above the UK average, which on 10 February stood at 149.7 per 100,000.

Overall, cases in the north west have fallen by 62 per cent in the last month. The corresponding figure in London is 82 per cent.

“We need to have a universal approach, but we need to put more resources into areas where people are affected the most,” Brown told The Lancashire Post.

Already, a host of other northern leaders and health experts have made the same case.

Speaking on Sky on Sunday, Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, said: “I’m not saying diverge completely from the phased [approach] set out by ages put forward by the JCVI [Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation].

“But what I am saying is put greater supplies of the vaccine into those areas where life expectancy is lowest and allow greater flexibility for people to be called earlier."

Those comments came after Dominic Harrison - public health director in Blackburn and a man much praised for his handling of the virus – warned that the current rollout could see the north west remain under lockdown for two months longer than the south east.

In a letter to the government, Professor Harrison urged ministers to accelerate vaccination distribution in poorer areas which continued to have high transmission rates.

He pointed out that people living in the north west were at twice the risk of death from Covid and three times the risk of transmission than those in the south east.

The government has so far continued to say it remains committed to the current system which has seen all over 70s, the clinically extremely vulnerable, care home residents and health and social care workers offered an initial jab.

Next, all those over 65, along with those of any age with certain underlying health conditions, will be offered the inoculation. After that, the process will move through the population in declining five-year age ranges down to 50.