Black people have a three-fold higher chance of being hospitalized 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.
This number could be higher as ethnicity is not reported in over a fifth cases.
Blacks are three times more likely to be hospitalized with Omicron than the average (stock photo)
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.
A comparison is made between 95% of white over-50s who had at least one Covid and 88% of elderly South Asians.
Older people – of any ethnicity – are far more likely to end up in hospital from serious Covid symptoms.
This figure may partially be explained by the geography of Omicron’s outbreak, as well as the significantly lower vaccine uptake in black communities (stock photo).