New collected data has shown that a staggering one in four young adults in the UK has yet to have received the first dose of the coronavirus vaccine.
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1 in 4 young adults yet to be jabbed
When looking at figures from across all four kingdoms, the percentage of people aged between 18 and 29 years who have not received their first jab range from 23.5% in Wales, 25.6% in Scotland, 27.7% in England and 29.2% in Northern Ireland. Vaccination for people in this age group has been available across all of the UK since the end of June.
With the surge in infection rates due to the Delta variant and the ease of social distancing restrictions, the government had pushed a host of initiatives to encourage young adults to get jabbed.
From publicity campaigns, to pop-up vaccination centres and to more extreme measures, like enforcing vaccine passports to be able to access nightclubs, much has been done to coax inoculation onto younger folks. Somehow, there is a significantly large amount of young adults still reluctant to receive the vaccine.
How to curb this reluctance?
In England alone, there are 54 local authority areas where one third of the young adult population has still not been jabbed with their first dose, including major cities like Manchester and Leeds. One proposed solution, as a result of schools having returned to England and Wales, is to put pressure on to getting 16 to 17 years jabbed as soon as possible, as suggested by Boris Johnson:
I would urge all 16 to 17-year-olds, everybody who knows 16 to 17-year-olds – the numbers are coming up very fast now, it is very encouraging to see more and more 16 to 17-year-olds taking the jab – but we need to go faster with those.
