Minority groups should ignore the anti-vax charlatans

My great-great-grandmother, born on a Barbadian plantation and transported to what was British Guiana in the 19th century, gave rise to a tribe that has spread across the globe. Weirdly, Covid has brought us together (via Zoom) in a way that used to be reserved for weddings and funerals. My New Yorker nephew found a time of day that could accommodate the Californians, the Canadians and the English rump in London, Cambridge and Nottingham. Harlem’s lights glimmered from another nephew’s screen, while the Florida gang kept their windows shut just in case the neighbours not so far away in Mar-a-Lago decided to drop by. Sadly, someone forgot to let the Trinis, the Bajans and the Welsh know about the meet-up, and it was way too early for Jakarta. Next time, it’ll be London’s turn to stay up late.

It was my eldest sister’s desire to become a nurse that prompted my parents to get on the boat from Georgetown to London. Nobody in our family questions the need for the vaccine, but there are charlatans out there telling minority communities that their distrust of the authorities should be translated into a suicidal rejection of the jab. One such bunch of idiots, flying under the banner of the ‘Taking the Initiative’ party, emerged from the so-called Black Lives Matter movement. Its leader, Charles Gordon, told an online event: ‘If you take that vaccine and you die, it’s on you.’ Thank heavens for the cross-party group of black MPs who put out a video saying they’d be taking the vaccine, and for the Treasury minister Kemi Badenoch, who volunteered to be filmed trialling the Novavax jab, shown to be 89 per cent effective last week.