Dear Editor,
An army of NHS nurses, GPs and volunteers have worked tirelessly to deliver over nine million first and second jabs to Londoners. This is a remarkable achievement.
But with social distancing and restrictions set to ease almost completely in a few weeks’ time and the Delta variant surging, we still need to ensure that as many people are protected as possible.
At time of writing this, 33.1% of Newham residents have had both doses of the vaccine. Like all other London boroughs, we have not yet reached the Government’s target of having two-thirds of the population double-jabbed by 19th July.
At the start of the pandemic, the capital was put on the back foot by supply issues, and vaccine hesitancy continues to be a problem. We also have a younger population than the rest of the country, so many Londoners have had to wait longer to access their jabs.
The good news is that local authorities and NHS London have pulled out all the stops in recent months to make significant progress in addressing the vaccination gap.
This will be driven forward in the weeks ahead, and I am urging all Londoners to come forward and get their jabs if they have not done so already. This is what stands between us and safely getting back to normality.
Yours,
Unmesh Desai AM
London Assembly Member for City & East London
Notes to editors
- Unmesh Desai AM is the London Assembly Member for City & East London (covering the City of London, Tower Hamlets, Newham and Barking & Dagenham).