It's Vital The Young Get Vaccinated In Fight To Save Lives

WE have been bombarded with statistics during the Covid pandemic, not all of them very enlightening.

- Ross Clark

But just occasionally up pops a figure which makes things very clear. One of them was the revelation by Amanda Pritchard, the new chief executive of the NHS, that one in five people in hospital with Covid is aged between 18 and 34. During the peak of Covid in January, it was more like one in 20.

There is no need to exaggerate the threat. Covid remains a disease which is far less deadly to the young than it is to the old. The overall number of 18 to 34-year-olds in hospital is around 1,000 – which in a country of 67 million is still a mercifully small number.

But what the figures tell us is how well that vaccines are doing at keeping older age groups out of hospital. The relative number of young people in hospital has increased because there is a huge disparity between the vaccination rate between age groups. Among the over-55s, according to ONS figures, the proportion of people who have received a double dose of vaccine is now well over 95 per cent. Among 75 to 79-year-olds it is virtually 100 per cent.

AMONG 18 to 24-year-olds, by contrast, only 62.2 per cent of men and 70 per cent of women have had one dose of vaccine. Among 30 to 34 year olds, only 34.4 per cent of men and 46.3 per cent of women have had both doses.