Black patients are over three times more likely than average to have been hospitalised with Omicron, figures show
- Black communities make up about 3.5 per cent of England’s total population
- They make up 12.5 per cent of those who have ended up in hospital with covid
- The number may be even higher, as ethnicity was not recorded in a fifth of cases
Black people are more than three times more likely than average to have been hospitalised with Omicron.
While black communities make up about 3.5 per cent of England’s population, data from the UK Health Security Agency shows they make up 12.5 per cent of those who have ended up in hospital with the variant so far.
The number may be even higher, as ethnicity was not recorded in more than a fifth of cases.
Black people are more than three times more likely than average to have been hospitalised with Omicron (stock image)
The geography of the Omicron outbreak – concentrated initially in London where about one in eight of the population is black – may partly explain the figure, along with a significantly lower uptake of vaccines among black communities.
By mid-December just 73 per cent of black over-50s had received at least one Covid jab, figures from Oxford University’s Open Safely data project show.
By comparison, 95 per cent of white over-50s had received at least one Covid vaccine, and 88 per cent of older South Asians.
Older people – of any ethnicity – are far more likely to end up in hospital from serious Covid symptoms.
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The geography of the Omicron outbreak may partly explain the figure, along with a significantly lower uptake of vaccines among black communities (stock image)
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