UK Home Secretary Priti Patel warned against a degree of reluctance towards COVID-19 vaccines among ethnic minority communities in the UK, including some within the Indian diaspora, and hailed the work being done by temples, mosques and gurdwaras to counter disinformation. Speaking at a virtual event organised by the Conservative Friends of India (CFIN) diaspora group on Tuesday evening, the senior Cabinet minister said she plans to get very vocal over the issue to spread the message around the safety and efficacy of vaccines currently being administered as part of the National Health Service’s (NHS) largest vaccination campaign in history.
The two vaccines currently being administered among those most at risk of dying from coronavirus in the UK are the Pfizer/BioNTech and Oxford/AstraZeneca jabs. “We are seeing a degree of reluctance among some in the ethnic communities to have the vaccine. All sorts of disinformation is out there. I plan to be very vocal about this,” said Patel.