All adults may need a third ‘ booster’ jab before winter
ALL adults in Scotland are expected to be offered a coronavirus booster vaccine ahead of this winter, officials have said.
the country’s 4.5million adults are already due to get a first dose by the end of July, followed by a second dose within 12 weeks.
But national clinical director professor Jason Leitch yesterday told MSps he is ‘expecting’ the need for annual booster jabs, which will start ahead of next winter.
it means that all adults can expect to be vaccinated three times this year to protect themselves against the deadly virus.
professor Leitch told Holyrood’s Covid-19 committee: ‘What we’re anticipating is probably annual vaccination. that’s what most of the experts in respiratory viruses and vaccination expect we’ll need.
‘that would mean a booster dose for those who have already been done, which will be the whole adult population, by the end of July. that would happen probably going into winter 2021 – i can’t know that for sure, it may be that immunity lasts long enough that we can do it in the spring, but let’s just presume that we’ve got manufacturing upscaled, the world is ready and we can do 4.5million people in the winter of 2021.’
Latest official figures show that, by yesterday morning, 1,825,800 people in Scotland had received the first dose, while 141,433 had been given their second jab.
in the previous 24 hours, 16,642 people got the first dose, and 8,673 the second.
those who have received the first dose include virtually all those over the age of 65, as well as 45 per cent of those aged 6064, 38 per cent of those in the 5559 age group and 31 per cent of those aged between 50 and 54.
Nicola Sturgeon said: ‘We remain on track to offer first doses to everyone over 50, all unpaid carers and all adults with
‘Nervous and anxious’
underlying health conditions by mid-April.’
it was also confirmed yesterday that 163,111 people who are ‘clinically extremely vulnerable’ – those previously asked to abide by shielding rules – have received their first dose, an estimated 91 per cent of individuals in this category.
But tory MSp Jamie Greene said many of the one in ten vulnerable people who have not yet received the jab are ‘nervous and anxious’ while awaiting their appointment letter.
He also raised concerns over reports there ‘may be up to 900,000 doses of the vaccine allocated to Scotland but unused’.
responding to his comments, Miss Sturgeon said: ‘We have to model the supplies over a period to make sure that we are getting the number of appointments right, not just against the supplies that we have today but against the supplies that we will have next week and the week after that. For the past few weeks, we have also had to reserve a proportion of the supplies for second doses, which have started to fall due, given that it is 12 weeks since people began to get the vaccine in early December.
‘All of that has to be and is being carefully managed. that is true in Scotland, england, Wales and Northern ireland. We are vaccinating people as quickly as supplies allow, and that will continue to be the case.’
Miss Sturgeon said there had been a ‘dip’ in supply because of short-term manufacturing issues but from the middle of this month she expects supplies to ‘increase significantly again’.