“We locked down late and that cost us a unit full of people,” Breeze said. “The lack of lives saved by test and trace were massively outweighed by the lives cost by not sanctioning Cummings for his jaunt and the signal that sent to everyone that lockdowns are something you can pick and choose when you want to.”
He noticed patterns among victims – disproportionately from black, Asian and minority ethnic communities and overweight.
“We had more BAME patients than we should have done and the staff members we lost were all BAME,” he said. “Most of the younger people we lost were black – people in their 30s and 40s.”
Last modified on Fri 29 Jan 2021 05.34 EST
The health impact of belonging to some ethnic minority groups is equivalent to being 20 years older than your actual age, England’s largest ever study of health inequalities in BAME communities has found.
Not only are people from these groups often poorer and more likely to suffer from underlying health conditions, they are also more likely to report worse treatment when visiting their GP surgery, and insufficient support from local services, such as housing and social care.
The study, which surveyed almost 1.4 million adults aged over 55, provides fresh insights into why people of black and south Asian ethnic backgrounds have a greater risk of death from Covid than white people.
Covid-19: Breaking down Asian vaccine myths in Lancashire
Published
media captionPreston kids urge grandparents to take the Covid-19 vaccine so you can live longer
A teacher is making online videos with children to tackle myths in South Asian communities about the safety of the Covid-19 vaccine.
Neetal Parekh, from Preston, believes the language barrier is one reason why some older people have been scared to have the vaccine.
She said many were being misled simply because they do not know enough .
The 36-year-old has created a collection of short videos of young children urging their grandparents to have the vaccine in a variety of South Asian languages such as Gujarati, Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu.