We can all play a part in the drive to get more young people vaccinated

People in their early 20s currently have the highest Covid-19 infection rate in England

People aged 18 to 34 now make up more than one in five of those admitted to hospital with the virus - four times higher than the peak in winter 2020.

This is why the NHS has released a new video today calling on young people to get vaccinated.

Why is there still a degree of reticence around getting jabbed among this age group? It’s a complex issue, and may often just come down to a sense that it’s not top of their priority list, as we explored recently.

It’s been over a month since England’s so-called ‘Freedom Day’, but it’s dangerous to start thinking that the pandemic’s over.

Daily Covid cases in the UK have edged back up above 30,000 over the past week, as the Delta variant continues to prove extremely difficult to suppress. Deaths are back above 100 per day, and the hospitalisation rate is also going in the wrong direction.

While the vaccines may not completely stop the spread (they’re around 50% effective against the Delta variant when it comes to transmission, compared to over 90% against the previous variants), the important point is that they are extremely good at keeping you relatively healthy.

By getting both jabs, your chance of being hospitalised with Covid is reduced by 92%.

And then there’s the protection against long Covid, highlighted so starkly in the NHS video.

The message is clear: if we want to get through this, we need to get jabbed, and encourage others to do the same.

A message from the editor:

Thank you for reading. NationalWorld is a new national news brand, produced by a team of journalists, editors, video producers and designers who live and work across the UK. Find out more about who’s who in the team, and our editorial values. We want to start a community among our readers, so please follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and keep the conversation going. You can also sign up to our newsletters and get a curated selection of our best reads to your inbox every day.