Prompted by our own challenges accessing a Covid booster vaccine in autumn 2024 in the UK, we're mapping the pharmacies that offer the vaccine privately in the country to under-65s.
This concept is inspired by the work in the US to map inner city "food deserts" where people struggle to access fresh foods, due to the lack of access to supermarkets. (The image above is from similar research here in the UK by the Consumer Data Research Centre.)
In case it's not obvious, people with Long Covid want to get boosters to help them avoid new infections and reduce their impacts. Repeat infections can further disable people with the condition. But in the UK, the government is only making free vaccines available to people with a very restricted number of medical conditions (neither Long Covid nor ME-CFS are included), or those over age 65. Everybody else is forced to find a private, paid option, at a pharmacy. Boots pharmacies are offering them, and this website has 304 pharmacies offering them. But based on our experience, we're not convinced that there is adequate geographical coverage. Not just in rural places, but in urban centres too. So we're mapping them to find out.
Please contact us if you face a similar scenario and relevant data from your country, and would like to map vaccine deserts near you.