COVID BOOSTER JAB ‘FOR ALL OVER-50S’
But expert warns against move
A DECISION on whether to offer autumn Covid booster jabs to all over-50s is expected in the next few weeks amid warnings they offer “very limited” infection protection.
Government sources have suggested it is in favour of expanding eligibility but interim advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation is to restrict them to over-65s.
JCVI member Prof Adam Finn refused to reveal its final decision but said the latest booster jabs will come too late to protect against the current Covid surge.
Prof Finn told the Mirror: “What we’re seeing is immune escape and that means the duration of protection against infection and transmission is getting worse and worse.
“So the value in terms of indirect protection is very low. Since so few healthy young adults and children actually get seriously ill themselves there’s very little gain to be had by putting a lot of effort into immunising them.
“What these vaccines can do is to protect people from getting seriously ill so we need to give them to people who are potentially going to get seriously ill, and that’s elderly people and those with underlying health conditions.”
The JCVI h a s increased its meetings to once weekly before its final recommendation to the Government as UK cases rose to an estimated 2.3 million last week.
It recommended in May that only healthy over-65s should be offered a booster in the autumn, along with younger people at clinical risk, elderly care home residents and frontline health and care workers.
If eligibility was expanded to over-50s, then an extra six million middle-aged people could get a fourth dose.
But Prof Finn warned a wider rollout will harm NHS efforts to clear its treatment backlog.
He said: “If we take everyone off to give Covid vaccines which don’t achieve very much, they’re not doing something else useful in the health service, whether it’s other vaccine programs or caring for people with cancer.”
The issue of autumn boosters now falls into the in-tray of Steve Barclay, who replaced Sajid Javid as Health Secretary following his resignation.
And Saffron Cordery, interim boss of NHS Providers, added: “There is a very real risk that Covid could once again throw the NHS’s efforts to tackle these substantial backlogs off course.”
martin.bagot@mirror.co.uk @MartinBagot
We need to give them to people who are potentially going to get seriously ill
PROF ADAM FINN ON WHO WE SHOULD TARGET WITH BOOSTERS
KATE Garraway’s Covidstricken husband has returned to hospital for treatment.
Derek Draper, 54, has been bedridden since contracting the virus more than two years ago.
Good Morning Britain host Kate, 55, put on a brave face yesterday as she revealed: “He’s OK. He’s back in hospital actually, so that’s a development.” At the TRIC Awards in London, she also praised her children Darcey, 16, and Billy, 12, for supporting her.
Kate added: “They have been amazing – all the way through.”
Derek was put in a medically induced coma during 13 months in hospital from March 2020. He returned BRAVE FACE Kate home 15 months ago but he still had round-the-clock care. More recently he has been able to leave the house in a wheelchair. Derek, a political adviser, is believed to be one of Britain’s longest-suffering Covid patients. Kate told last week that she hoped to take him to Buckingham Palace to receive her MBE. mark.jefferies@mirror.co.uk @mirrorjeffers