Dear Reading’s Faith Contacts and Community Contacts,
I hope you are all well and safe.
Today’s update is covering Covid-19 vaccination programme, resources to get information on Covid-19, an important survey to take on ‘why is Covid-19 killing people of colours’, Compass Recovery College’s new free courses schedules for Spring and Get Berkshire Active’s free course training to support people to be physically active.
Covid-19 Vaccination
To date, over 23 million people in the UK have had the vaccine. Anyone aged 50 and over can now book their vaccination appointment. If you are eligible, you can book your vaccination appointment online here: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/coronavirus-vaccination/book-coronavirus-vaccination/. You can also use this link to check whether you are among the other groups currently eligible for the vaccine. If you are not yet eligible, please wait to be contacted. The NHS will let you know when it's your turn to have the vaccine. If you have a health condition and you're eligible for the Covid-19 vaccine, you can now book online or by calling 119.
What to Expect after your Covid-19 vaccination?
Please read the Government guidelines on what to expect after your Covid-19 vaccination here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-vaccination-what-to-expect-after-vaccination/what-to-expect-after-your-covid-19-vaccination . This document will let you know about side effects of the vaccine, what to do if the side effects get worse or linger for longer than a week. It also explains that the vaccine cannot give you COVID-19 infection, and a full course will reduce your chance of becoming seriously ill. However, even though we do expect the vaccine to reduce the risk of becoming seriously ill, we do not know yet whether it will stop you from catching and passing on the virus. So, it is extremely important to still follow the guidance on social distancing, mask wearing, hand washing to protect others.
SURVEY on a very important topic: “Why is Covid-19 killing people from ethnically diverse communities?” is being conducted by a student from the University of Reading. This research will help all of us to target our efforts to support our ethnically diverse communities in Reading to combat Covid-19 and its impacts on our health and well-being. It takes only 5 minutes to do it, please participate here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScRi_fHHF5eupa-dBgLhs8oYq09Xg2TP7kjELFB4D59eYXdSA/viewform. Deadline is Thursday 25 March 2021. If you have any queries please contact: Haaris Ahmed haaris.ahmed@student.reading.ac.uk
Covid-19 Information Resources
NHS England and NHS Improvement has published this film about vaccinations for people with a learning disability and autistic people, to help share information and encourage the uptake of the vaccine within this group. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3Wh23PDnfE
Respond UK ( https://respond.org.uk/) has produced this video in collaboration with families who have loved ones with a learning disability and/or who are autistic with lived experience to help other families get through this unprecedented time, as Covid-19 has made this period of time even more challenging for them than most. Video is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-DqDtqq7-g
Public Health for Berkshire(https://www.berkshirepublichealth.co.uk/vaccinations) has a compilation of videos in several community languages with NHS frontline staff explaining how the vaccine is given, why it works and why it's safe. The languages are: Swahili, Yoruba, Arabic, Bengali, Gujarati, Igbo, Romanian, Punjabi, Polish, Nepali, Urdu, Turkish, Spanish. You can find the videos here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qge6n4j9cA0&list=PLeCUJfQ9oWpZ4ziwYdRBNzTZRVY9FMNkt
NHS Oxfordshire CCG has shared this video on Myths Busting about Covid-19 vaccine. It is only for two minutes but extremely informative: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZchyCePwxlM
Reading Refugee Support Group’s CEO, Nick Harborne has kindly shared a video of himself getting Covid-19 vaccine to encourage our communities to do the same. https://vimeo.com/522818139
Community United has collated Q&As from their latest event “Fact from Fiction of Covid-19 Vaccine” in February. It is extremely useful information to share widely, just click here.
EVENTS AND TRAININGS
Compass Recovery College continues to run FREE mental health and wellbeing courses, such as: Being kinder to ourselves: beginning self-care and compassion; Introduction to psychosis; Wellbeing, self-care and resilience, outdoor yoga, Pilates for sitters, and many more. Please email them at: compass.opportunities@reading.gov.uk (file attached).
Get Berkshire Active is running a free online training course to help people become more physically active. It is on Wednesday 5th May, 10:30-12:00. For more information, please contact Casey.Dunlop@getberkshireactive.organd make sure you check out the leaflet attached.
That’s it for this week.
I hope that this information is useful and helpful for our communities.
Please do share far and wide. My apologies if some information may be repetitive.
As usual, do let me know if you have any feedback on the information I have shared.
I would love to hear from you.
If you do not wish to receive these emails on Covid19 information and communication for faith groups and community groups, please reply telling me you wish not to be contacted.
Best wishes,
Nisa
Covid19 Communication Engagement and Outreach Officer
Public Health and Wellbeing Team
Directorate of Adult Care and Health Services
Reading Borough Council
Bridge Street, Civic Centre, Reading, RG1 2LU
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