HEALTH leaders will write to employers across the city asking them to give their staff paid time off work to get vaccinated.

Companies could get a letter signed jointly by York's public health director Sharon Stoltz and representatives from the clinical commissioning group and the hospital to stress the importance of allowing employees time to get their Covid vaccination.

City leaders are also urging people to take Covid tests regularly, which can be ordered for free online or taken at a testing site, so that any increase in cases can be detected early.

The city's Covid rate is currently the lowest in the region, at 15.2 cases per 100,000 people on May 13.

And more than half of York's total population have now had at least one dose of the vaccine - but figures show that the uptake of vaccinations remains lowest in the Guildhall ward in the city centre.

In Guildhall 74.2 per cent of people aged 40 or over have had the vaccine - meaning one in four people who are eligible have not yet been vaccinated.

Fishergate, Hull Road and Clifton are among areas with the lowest rates of take up, while the top areas are Heworth Without, Haxby and Wigginton and Copmanthorpe.

Contact tracers have been phoning residents who are eligible for the vaccine but have not yet booked to receive it.

Fiona Phillips, assistant director of public health at the council said: "We do have a number of people who don't want to engage with us and then we have a number of people who have just had it or they're about to have it.

"But of those who we've made contact with [who are eligible for the vaccine] who have not taken it up, we've got about a third of people who still have some concerns about the safety or the efficacy of the vaccine.

"That's where the contact traces can have that conversation and and give them some more information so that they can you know have a bit more of a think about it. We've had quite a good response from people who've said they'll give it some more thought and some who do then go on to book."

She added that around five per cent of eligible people who have not taken up their vaccine yet have reasons such as difficulties finding transport or childcare.

A full report into vaccine inequality is due next month.