UK needs booster-jab plan now, say health leaders
The government must start planning for the autumn booster jab rollout now, doctors and NHS trusts have said – as it will involve bigger challenges.
The doctors said there were many questions that need answering, including how long immunity from the original coronavirus jab lasts, and whether children will be vaccinated.
“We cannot just carry on as we are, with an emergency response,” they said.
The government said it was planning for a booster programme later this year.
But it said final decisions on what the rollout would be like depended on the data from ongoing trials.
So far, nearly 60% of UK adults have had two jabs of the vaccine, meaning they are fully vaccinated, and more than four in five adults have had their first dose.
People have been rushing to get their vaccines in recent days, with more than one million jabs booked on Friday and Saturday in England after vaccinations opened to all over-18s.
Ministers have repeatedly said that vaccination is the way out of lockdown, and the delay to England’s lockdown ending from 21 June until 19 July was partly to allow more people to get vaccinated.
Some restrictions have been eased, though, on the day that had been dubbed Freedom Day – the original date for lockdown ending.
The number of guests at a wedding is no longer limited to 30 (although there are capacity rules depending on a venue’s size), visiting arrangements for care homes are changing, children can go on overnight trips in groups of 30, and pilots of large events like Euro 2020 games will continue.
And in Wales, rules are also being lifted slightly, including Covid capacity restrictions for music and comedy and the limits on weddings changing in line with a venue’s size.
However, the average number of daily confirmed cases of coronavirus is now rising in the UK, with a further 9,284 announced by the government on Sunday. A further six deaths were announced.