In March, Sir Lenny Henry and others urged people to get vaccinated: “You have legitimate worries and concerns, we hear that. We know change needs to happen and that it’s hard to trust some institutions and authorities.

“But we’re asking you to trust the facts about the vaccine from our own professors, doctors, scientists involved in the vaccine’s development, GPs, not just in the UK but across the world including the Caribbean and Africa.”

“Many of whom are our relatives, many of whom have made the ultimate sacrifice to protect the people of this country from this pandemic.

“And the thousands who volunteered to be part of the vaccine trials so that we know it’s safe and works for people of all ethnicities.”

In a recent study of 2,300 children between 12 and 15 years of age, the children were divided into two groups, half received vaccine, half received placebo. Over the next several months, 18 of them got Covid, all in the placebo group. The vaccine was safe. Vaccines work.

The vaccines are not dangerous; they can’t affect fertility; they can’t somehow alter your DNA. The risks from not being vaccinated are far, far higher than the tiny risk from vaccination.

Even healthy young people are at risk from Covid, so they need to be vaccinated for their own sake as well as for the sake of those near to them.

Doctors and scientists are motivated by wanting to help people. By contrast, all too many anti-vaxxers aim to profit out of people’s concerns by promoting their own remedies, which are always fakes and always expensive.

Will Podmore

Clavering Road, Wanstead