Britain will speed up booster shots
Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain said Sunday evening that its coronavirus vaccine booster program would be accelerated to counter what he called a “tidal wave” of cases from the rapidly spreading omicron variant.
Johnson said the British government would now aim to offer all eligible adults a booster shot by the end of this year, a month earlier than the goal he set on Nov. 30 to deliver these millions of shots by the end of January.
“No one should be in any doubt: There is a tidal wave of omicron coming,” Johnson said in a videotaped address, “and I’m afraid it is now clear that two doses of vaccine are simply not enough to give the level of protection we all need.”
Johnson, who has been under extreme pressure for days after the disclosure that his aides held a holiday party in breach of coronavirus restrictions last year, did not announce any major new social-distancing restrictions. But the government raised the COVID alert level from three to four its secondhighest level amid signs that omicron was spreading rapidly throughout the country.
In raising the alert level, the chief medical officers of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland declared in a statement that the “early evidence shows that omicron is spreading much faster than delta and that vaccine protection against symptomatic disease from omicron is reduced.”
The first real-world study of how vaccines hold up against the omicron variant, published by British government scientists Friday, indicated that there was a significant drop in protection after an initial round but that third vaccine doses provided considerable defense.
Under what Johnson called the “Omicron Emergency Boost,” the government will offer booster shots to adults ages 18 and older by New Year’s Day. Adults are eligible for a booster shot three months after their second shot. Britain has distributed 23.1 million booster shots, reaching 40.2% of people ages 12 and above.
To reach the new goal, Johnson said the National Health Service would have to defer some other medical procedures between now and the end of the year. He said the government would deploy 42 military planning units to help open additional vaccination centers and mobile units.