Priti Patel visits Byron Hall Covid-19 vaccination centre

Byron Hall Vaccination Centre in Harrow saw the home secretary tour the Covid-19 vaccination centre on Wednesday (February 10).

During the visit she met with NHS staff and volunteers at the site, including deputy head clinician Dr Dilip Patel.

Later on, she talked to chief clinician Dr Kaushik Karia though a video link at the site.

Patel, who was born to Gujarati parents in Harrow, has claimed that social media companies are to blame for the rise of vaccine hesitancy and misinformation among ethnic minorities and the general population.

Priti Patel talks to Dr. Kaushik Karia via video

During the visit she explained that major networks like Facebook and Twitter have a responsibility to remove false or misleading anti-vaccination posts, and to instead proactively post accurate government information to counter antivaxers.

The visit at Byron Hall, which caters to Harrow’s multicultural borough, was to point out that vaccinations are safe - and ethnic minorities hesitant about vaccines should seek for correct information.

It comes after the Centre for Countering Digital Hate revealed that antivaxers are specifically targeting black and Asian communities by spreading through social media and Whatsapp.

In an interview with The Times at the vaccination site, Patel said that information from the NHS “is the most trusted information source about the vaccine”