Vaccination rates in Asian communities have now caught up with white groups but half of black people in England are yet to have a jab, analysis by The Times shows.
People from ethnic minorities have long been more hesitant about vaccination but the NHS has been working with local groups in the hope of closing a gap in vaccination rates.
This appears to have been successful for Asian communities but less so for black populations.
Critics of vaccine passports, due to be introduced in England next month, have warned that they risk dividing society on racial lines given the disparities in take-up.
Mistrust of authority, socio-economic status and social media conspiracy theories have all been suggested as possible explanations as to why people from minority groups have been more hesitant.
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Analysis of NHS England data suggests that 61 per cent of “white British” people, including adults and children, have had at least one jab.
At the end of March, the gap between this group and Asian communities was ten percentage points, with whites being a third more likely to have had a jab. The difference has all but disappeared, with 59 per cent of Asian or Asian British people now having had a jab after a big surge in uptake. Three million doses have been given to this group since February — far more than other minority groups.
Only 44 per cent of black people in England have had a jab, with numbers increasing more slowly. The 16-point gap in take-up is little different to the 17-point gap at the end of March.
Other minority groups have higher uptake, with an overall figure of 85 per cent for smaller groups taken together.
However, ethnicity data was not available for 5.2 million people who have had a first dose, making detailed comparisons difficult.
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Only adults have been offered jabs until now but the Office for National Statistics does not break down its ethnic minority population estimates by age. Assuming age profiles similar to the national average, the figures would imply that 78 per cent of white British adults, 76 per cent of Asian adults and 57 per cent of black adults have been vaccinated.
Mark Drakeford, the Welsh first minister, yesterday cited “equity considerations” when saying that the Cardiff government has no plans to follow England in introducing vaccine passports.
He said: “You need to think about people who can’t be vaccinated, not simply people who don’t choose to be vaccinated.”
He also warned of a “very considerable apparatus” needed to produce vaccine passports and ensure “that they couldn’t be fraudulently produced, that they could be properly policed in those venues”. Drakeford said that the idea had not been definitely ruled out but there was a “high threshold” for vaccine passports to cross before they were seen as a “practical and proportionate way of protecting people”.