If people refuse vaccine it's their shout it's not racist nick ferrari

Chances are if you’re old enough to remember when the numbers on footballers’ shirts only went from one to 11 and avocado was the colour of your bathroom suite, not mashed with peppers and

served as breakfast, most conver-sations you have had recently with family, friends or total strangers have all been about whether or not you’ve had the jab. Callers to my radio show told me

stories last week of what they have done to ensure they, or their loved ones, are among the “haves”. One man in Suffolk walked for half an hour, then took two buses and a train to get his

jab. An elderly woman in Herefordshire took three hours to get her and a friend to her vaccination centre because she had wrongly entered her postcode and “didn’t want to trouble anyone or

the NHS any further because they’re so busy.” Having had their jabs, they spent  an hour drinking coffee to prepare themselves for the three-hour journey home, which had to be completed on a

motorway in the dark. The same day one think tank urged the Government to offer a door-to-door vaccine service in hard to reach, deprived and minority ethnic communities. Runnymede Trust

chief executive Dr Halima Begum warned that if this hugely expensive undertaking wasn’t considered, the virus could be seen as a disease of poverty. To back up this well-intentioned

suggestion some data was provided for the Sparkbrook and Balsall Heath East part of Birmingham. This inner-city area has a large Somali population and 90 percent of its residents are BAME

(black, Asian and minority ethnic). However, just 57 percent of the over-80s have had their first vaccination, compared with an estimated 93.4 percent nationally. Yet quite why this deficit

should be resolved by anyone other than these deserving folk and their families is baffling. What’s next? Are we meant to provide a service to make sure people bolt their doors at night or

remember to wear a vest? In an interview Dr Begum said: “Usually, the affluent middle classes will end up accessing services better, whereas those with less voice and who might experience

... racism will experience barriers to health access.” So the fact that a vaccination has been made universally available and the NHS boasts translators in more languages than a meeting of

the UN is still not enough! There has to be a degree of individual responsibility here – as the Queen rightly pointed out last week. The incredible roll-out of the vaccination programme has

been world beating for a country of this size and has shown everything that is best about Britain. Our ground-breaking scientists have developed a star vaccine. Our military has worked with

our NHS to deliver it to millions of grateful people. And they’ve been supported by an army of volunteers, mostly unpaid, who have manned our sports stadiums, car parks and churches to get

the jabs into people’s arms. These vaccines are lifesavers and shouldn’t have to be delivered like a pizza. Everyone’s doing their bit. Now it’s time to do yours, for you and those you love.