Boosters for all aged 18 and over
ALL people aged 18 and over are to be offered a Covid-19 booster vaccine as part of efforts to tackle the spread of the new Omicron variant.
Millions more people in the UK will become eligible for a third booster dose after early evidence suggested that higher antibody levels may protect better against the variant.
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) is now advising that all adults aged 18 to 39 should be offered a booster dose, in order of descending age groups, to increase their level of protection. Those aged 40 and over are already eligible for a booster vaccine.
Booster doses should be given no sooner than three months after people have had their second dose of an original vaccine shaving three months off the current sixmonth wait, according to the JCVI.
In further advice, young people aged 12 to 15 should be offered a second dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine, no sooner than 12 weeks after their first dose.
The JCVI also said that severely immunosuppressed people should be offered a booster dose no sooner than three months after completing their primary course of three doses.
Health Secretary Sajid Javid told the Commons he accepted the JCVI advice in full, adding: “With this new variant on the offensive these measures will protect more people more quickly and make us better protected as a nation.
“It represents a huge step up for our vaccination programme, almost doubling the number of people who will be able to get a booster dose to protect themselves and their loved ones.”
England’s deputy chief medical officer Professor Jonathan Van-Tam told a Downing Street briefing that coronavirus variants were inevitable and Omicron was the “new kid on the block for now” but suggested the UK was in “unchartered territory” as to whether it would take hold.
He added: “I think it’s true to say that scientists around the world, not just in the UK, unfortunately agree that this one is of increased concern.”
He said the “number of mutations present, already on first principle, makes us worry about a possible effect on vaccine effectiveness”.
Urging people not to panic, Prof Van-Tam said there were still uncertainties about how transmissible the variant is and its impact on severity of disease.
“On the effects of the new variants, and how well vaccine effectiveness will hold up, here I want to be clear that this is not all doom and gloom at this stage,” he said.
“I do not want people to panic at this stage. If vaccine effectiveness is reduced, as seems pretty likely to some extent, the biggest effects are likely to be in preventing infections and, hopefully, there will be smaller effects on preventing severe disease.”
Prof Van-Tam said the booster campaign has “never been more vital than at this point in time.” He compared the situation to a football team with key players on a yellow card, saying that everyone needed to “up their game” in response.
“We started with 11 players in the team with the Wuhan vaccine. You could say that we picked up a couple of injuries when Alpha came along and then Delta came along, those variants that are slightly different from the Wuhan original strain.
“We’ve had to use our subs off the bench to keep us in the game, but we are well in the game - you can see that with the current epidemiology in relation to Delta, that the vaccines are holding up very well and largely keeping us out of trouble.
“Omicron is like now picking up a couple of yellow cards to key players on top.
“We may be OK but we’re kind of starting to feel at risk that we might go down to 10 players and if that happens - or it’s a risk that’s going to happen - then we need everyone on the pitch to up their game in the meantime.”