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Evening Standard Comment: Let’s redouble efforts to get our city jabbed

 (PA)
(PA)

There will be no overnight queues at Wimbledon this year, replaced instead by the sight of thousands of young people waiting in the summer rain for their vaccines.

More than 75,000 Londoners got their jab on Saturday as mass vaccination centres sprang up in the city’s football stadiums in a welcome display of civic duty.

We need to encourage this behaviour. Ramping up London’s lagging vaccination rate is key to ending lockdown. Dr Susan Hopkins, strategic director for Covid-19 at Public Health England, has said that restrictions could be lifted if 70 per cent of adults are double-jabbed by July 19.

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To reach the two-thirds target set by the Prime Minister at his Downing Street press conference a week ago, the capital requires 110,000 vaccinations per day. It will take an enormous coordinated effort to reach that point.

Doing so will require an all-borough effort in some of the areas with lower rates such as Westminster, where only 55 per cent of adults have received a first dose compared with Richmond’s city-leading 85 per cent.

We need community leaders, local politicians and the NHS to redouble efforts to reach those who have not yet taken up the offer of a jab for whatever reason.

Of course, longer-term challenges remain. While the UK health regulator has approved the Pfizer vaccine for use among 12 to 17-year-olds, it remains controversial.

Yet with keeping schools open throughout autumn and winter a huge priority, the Government must have a plan for if and how it intends to invite children to take the vaccine.

As of last month in the United States, more than four million people under the age of 17 have been vaccinated in an effort to boost the chances of reaching herd immunity.

July 19 is our next milestone. We must do all we can to reach it.

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