Why is the vaccine rollout slowing down?

Take-up of Covid-19 vaccines has dropped dramatically in recent days, leading to fears that millions of young people are choosing to go unvaccinated.

Last week, government scientists said the country is “close to maximum take-up” of vaccinations, even though a significant proportion of young people are yet to be protected against the potentially life-threatening illness, reports The Times.

Young adults were the last group to be invited to receive the jab, and after an initial surge in demand, “which NHS bosses compared to the scramble for Glastonbury tickets”, says the Daily Mail, bookings have slowed significantly.

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Since vaccinations opened up to all over-18s almost a month ago, just 61% of 18-24-year-olds in England have had their first jab. The figure is only a little higher in the 25 to 29 age group, 67% of whom have had at least one jab, says The Sunday Times. The take-up for those above 40 is well over 90%, according to data from the Office for National Statistics.

‘Inevitable slowdown’

“Among the over-30s, it feels as though everyone who put their hand up first time has been done,” John Roberts, from the Covid-19 Actuaries Response Group, told The Telegraph. He said it was “inevitable” that as the programme reached the end it would slow down.

“If fewer people are putting their hands up in areas where hesitancy is high, we are getting to the point where there are not that many people left to do,” he said. “Then the process of trying to get round to those people on a very manual basis, using whatever techniques they use, is inevitably going to be slow.”

So far, around 46 million people have had a first vaccine dose – about 87% of the adult population – and more than 35 million have had a second. As a nation, the UK “continues to be among those with the highest vaccination rates globally”, reports the BBC.

That may explain why some ministers remain fairly “relaxed” about the slowdown, says The Times. Others argue that the removal of quarantine for the fully vaccinated when going on holiday, or after contact with an infected person, may “act as an incentive to boost take-up”.

But as younger and harder-to-reach groups lag behind, the slowdown will “add to concerns about the scale of a summer wave” when restrictions are lifted on Monday, says the paper.

Vaccine hesitancy in young people

People under 30 are most likely to be vaccine “hesitant”, with 9% of 18-21-year-olds and 10% of 22-25-year-olds expressing a reluctance to take the vaccine, according to the latest ONS figures. Across all age groups, only 4% of adults have indicated hesitancy towards the jab.

The reasons for vaccine hesitancy among young people are varied, and can “originate in people’s backgrounds, philosophical or religious beliefs, or approach to risk”, writes the i newspaper.

But there have been some commonly cited concerns, such as the speed the vaccine was developed and safety concerns over possible side effects, says the paper.

Linda Bauld, professor of public health at the University of Edinburgh, also added that poor experiences with authority could also be putting young people off: “A particular reason there for young people being hesitant is because they distrust authority. Maybe they’ve had an experience with police, they don’t trust the local council or the government, [making them feel] disenfranchised.”

And with young people at lower risk of becoming seriously ill from coronavirus, many feel they simply don’t need the jab, according to Dr Mohammed Razai of the Population Health Research Institute at St George’s University of London.

“The risk of severe disease and deaths from Covid is lower, and perception of risk is lower amongst the younger age group,” he told the i. “That is very obviously causing a complacency. It’s true they’re not high risk relative to others, but they are still at risk of complications like long Covid.”

Some young women also fear the jab could affect their fertility, says the Daily Mail, after the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency reported that it had received nearly 4,000 accounts from women in the UK who’d said they’d experienced changes to their periods after the jab.

But the Department of Health says there's “no evidence of an increased risk of menstrual disorders owing to the Covid-19 vaccination”, as the number of reports is extremely low compared to the number of women of child-bearing age in the UK who’ve been vaccinated. The BMJ also said there was “absolutely no evidence” that the jab affected fertility.