90% Of Students in England Received at Least One Vaccine Dose

90 percent of university students in England have already been vaccinated against COVID-19, of which 78 percent have been fully vaccinated while 12 percent have received one dose, according to a survey by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

7 percent of student participants said that they had not been vaccinated for COVID-19; of these 58 claimed they are “fairly or very unlikely” to receive the vaccine, while 31 percent said they are “very or fairly likely” to do so.

53 percent of students who had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine believe that COVID-19 poses a major or significant risk to them, Erudera.com reports.

Furthermore, nearly half or 59 percent of students said that they have “always or most of the time” tried to comply with the 2-meter distance measure from people outside their household, a drop from 83 percent in late May 2021.

Other survey findings include:

• 55 percent of students performed a COVID-19 test in the previous seven days.
• 90 percent of students reported they would request a test in case of Coronavirus symptoms.
• 58 percent of students said they would isolate at home for 10 days if they developed symptoms, a drop compared to 75 percent in late May this year.
• 53 percent of students stressed that their academic performance had been “significantly or majorly” impacted since the COVID-19 pandemic erupted.

According to findings, the average life satisfaction score for students was 6.5, notably higher than in late May 2021 (5.9); but still lower than for those aged 16 to 29 years (6.9) as well as considerably lower compared to the adult population in the United Kingdom (7.1).

The director of policy and advocacy at the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI), Alexis Brown, said that many students have claimed that their academic performance has seriously been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic despite the efforts of the universities to shift to remote education and provide mental health support during the crisis.

“With the possibility of more industrial action looming on the horizon, it will be interesting to see how students react to the prospect of yet more disruption to their studies – whether they will stand in solidarity with lecturers or refuse to support them, as the UCL student union has just done,” Brown told the Independent.

A few months ago, the annual National Student Survey by the Office for Students (OfS) revealed that over half of university and college students across the United Kingdom have not been supported enough in terms of mental health during this year, while 42 percent claimed they had received support.