A major vaccine rollout launched within North London’s Charedi community to counter the spread of the highly transmissible omicron variant of Covid-19.

Figures published last week for Hackney, home to the largest Strictly Orthodox community in the country, showed that vaccine take-up in the wards with the highest Jewish population were well below the national average.

Shmuel Davidson, a Charedi activist from Tottenham in Haringey, told the Board of Deputies on Sunday there was a “a major drive and push within the Charedi community to get the vaccine rolled out”.

He said, “ I want to reassure colleagues that we are working endlessly with the health service using Hatzola trained volunteers as vaccinators and the community are responding to that. And we are now about to launch another big vaccine rollout to combat what is going on and to try and keep the community safe and healthy.”

Hatzola is the Jewish medical emergency response service.

According to the BBC, 89 per cent of those aged 12 and over in the UK had received at least their first dose of the vaccine.

But Hackney council’s website revealed that in Springfield, Stamford Hill West and Cazenove three wards with a large Jewish population – first dose rates at the beginning of the month were only 47 per cent, 52 per cent and 53 per cent respectively.

There was no breakdown for the Jewish community as such.

However, some have suggested that the low rates in the Hackney wards may reflect a slow take-up among teenagers within the Charedi population, which has a far younger profile than the country as a whole.

Meanwhile, Mayor London Sadiq Khan told BBC1’s Andrew Marr show on Sunday that officials were working with the Black, Jewish, East European and Muslim communities “to get more and more of those not vaccinated at all receiving the jab”.

At the end of last week, faith leaders including Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis issued a joint appeal at the request of Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch for people to get vaccinated. (JC)


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