The vaccination program has been a huge success to date, starting on 8 December alone, but now every resident and staff of 10,413 care homes in the UK is on the first dose of the vaccine. offer a vaccine.
Apparently, they all get second doses too long as well.
According to NHS figures, England has been close to completing this key part of the process since February, when there were still five care homes left to offer doses of one of the vaccines.
It took a few weeks to arrive, but they are now complete.
In addition, one care home could not get the vaccine until recently because they had a coronavirus outbreak at the time, so they received their doses last week.
To get the injection, patients may not have the virus within 28 days.
There is still a long way to go, but it is good news from an NHS perspective.
Of those who received the vaccine living in care homes, 273,685 out of 292,081 received their first dose.
That’s a catch rate of 93.7 percent.
However, perhaps all of a sudden, the proportion of care home staff has been significantly lower than that.
Of the 459,176 care home workers, 351,951 accepted the offer of inoculation, which is just 76.6 percent acceptance rate.
There are six areas in England where acceptance among care home workers is less than 60 per cent.
Lambeth, Wandsworth, Camden, Hackney, and Redbridge in London have low uptake rates, with Lambeth recording just 45 per cent of care home workers taking a dose.
There are a number of possible reasons for this, with ethnicity, education, and income all identified as factors in vaccine delay, as well as openness to misinformation and lack of trust in medical professionals.
These latest figures come as the government has revealed it is looking to force care home workers to accept the kick if they want to keep their job.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock said LBC ‘many’ care homes would support such a proposal.
He said: “On this one, no decision has been made, but it ‘s something we’re looking at.
“Because people who care for former residents in care homes, which we know to be the most vulnerable to Covid, have a duty of care not to give up disease and it is a reasonable question. “