Tower Hamlets said a first dose had been administered to 28,000 of its 280,000 residents eligible for a vaccine in the first two months of the programme.
It said take-up had been weakest among black residents, with only 56 per cent receiving a first dose, compared with 69 per cent for people of South Asian heritage and 85 per cent of white residents.
Cllr Rachel Blake, the council’s deputy mayor for health, said: “Clearly we do still have a long way to go with the programme.”
The figures relate primarily to the top four priority groups. The borough has begun to vaccinate 65-69-year-olds and expects to have offered a jab to all over 50s by May.
Dr Somen Banerjee, the council’s public health director, said that seven in 10 residents over 70 had received a first dose, which was “great”.
He said that uptake across the borough – one of the most ethnically diverse in the UK - varied from “50 per cent to 90 per cent”. Since the start of the pandemic, the borough has had 28,000 confirmed cases and almost 460 deaths.
He said there were a range of reasons for poor uptake – from concerns about the content of the vaccines to fears about their safety and the speed at which they had been approved.
There was also some confusion about where to get the vaccine - or difficulty in getting to a vaccine centre – and about who was entitled to receive the jab at present, he said.
Dr Banerjee pleaded with residents to have the jab. “This is about protecting yourself, it’s about protecting your families, it’s about protecting your loved ones,” he said.
“It’s about a safe Tower Hamlets for all of us, so we can continue to go on to enjoy our lives in the way we were before this all began.”
Across London, 1,531,349 first doses had been administered by the end of Tuesday – the lowest number of the seven NHS regions in England.
