Deprived areas have experienced many more deaths from Covid than richer areas. As vaccines are being targeted to reduce mortality you’d think that this would mean that more people would be being vaccinated in deprived areas. (1/5)

But as a consequence of the approach being taken, the most deprived areas may currently be vaccinating *fewer* people than richer areas. This is because they have fewer over 80s – the group who are being vaccinated first. (2/5)

And they can’t start vaccinating other age groups until the over 80s programme has finished. This means that younger people in poor areas who may be at greater risk of dying than over 80s in rich areas aren’t getting the vaccine yet. (3/5) https://twitter.com/BecksFisher/status/1349286486643007488?s=20

What should be done ? First, we need a system that aims to give (more) equal access to the vaccine to people at equal risk across PCNs/areas. PCNs need to be allowed to order numbers of vaccines in proportion to number of people facing a certain level of risk. (4/5)

Second, Government needs to start publishing much more data. At the moment the published weekly and daily figures tell us next-to-nothing about who is getting the vaccine and possible inequalities in access. (5/5)