Covid boosters for all 18+ in UK, third jab wait slashed to three months

Written by The Daily Mail on November 30, 2021. Posted in Current News

All Britons over the age of 18 were today made eligible for Covid booster vaccines as ministers try to shield against an incoming wave of the Omicron variant — as more cases of the super strain were detected in Scotland and England.

The gap between second and third doses has also been chopped in half to three months with Professor Jonathan Van-Tam claiming that boosters had ‘never been more urgent’.

Today’s expansion means 50million Britons are now eligible for booster doses. Official data shows 17.5million have got their top-up jabs so far.

It’s unclear how the NHS will cope with the surge in demand for boosters. There have been dozens of reports of over-40s struggling to book one even before the drive was widened to younger age groups.

Boris Johnson’s official spokesman admitted that the definition of ‘fully vaccinated’ might have to be updated to include three doses, saying the Government was keeping it ‘under review’.

The top-up drive will prioritise people based on their age so that those who are most vulnerable will be able to get their jab first. Previously, the roll out was only open to over-40s.

Professor Van-Tam, England’s deputy chief medical officer, admitted it was likely that the Omicron variant would make vaccines less effective. But he said it was not all ‘doom and gloom’ because it could still protect against hospitalisation and death.

Sajid Javid, the Health Secretary, said the booster programme had been put ‘on steroids’ as the main line of defence against the worrying new variant that is believed to be more infectious and vaccine resistant than Delta.

Delivering an update on the strain in the Commons today, he claimed that if the variant proves to be no more dangerous than Delta then ‘we won’t keep measures in place for a day longer than necessary’.

Some experts have claimed that Omicron might be so optimised for infecting people that it is less lethal than previous strains, and South African doctors say patients with the mutant virus appear to have much milder symptoms. 

From 4am tomorrow, face masks are to become compulsory in UK shops, public transport, hairdressers and beauty salons — with secondary schools also advised to enforce them in corridors and canteens.

It came as Britain’s Covid outbreak shrank by every measure. The Department of Health said Covid cases fell five per cent in a week after another 42,583 positive tests were registered. Latest hospitalisations fell 12 per cent, and deaths dropped by a fifth.   

Everyone will be offered Pfizer or Moderna as a booster dose, even if they were originally vaccinated with AstraZeneca.

Those aged 12 to 15 years old will also be able to get their second Covid jab for the first time.

And immunocompromised patients who were given three vaccine doses as part of their primary course are set to be offered a fourth booster dose. 

It came as two more Omicron cases were confirmed in London — in Wandsworth and Camden —, both with links to travel from South Africa.

It means 11 infections have been detected in Britain to date, as labs probe up to 225 ‘possible’ cases. Six cases were announced in Scotland this morning but ‘some’ had no links to travel, suggesting the mutant strain may already be spreading in the UK.

No10 experts fear the highly evolved Omicron strain, already thought to be spreading domestically, may ‘significantly’ reduce the effectiveness of two vaccine doses.

But they hope the extremely high protection offered by boosters will broaden immunity against the new strain.

The Prime Minister today rejected calls from Nicola Sturgeon and Mark Drakeford to tighten up the UK’s response to Omicron further arguing the initial response to the variant is correct and will be reviewed in three weeks.

The two first ministers of Scotland and Wales had demanded Covid self-isolation rules be extended from two to eight days to curb the spread of the virus, and called for a COBRA meeting to thrash out a four nations approach.

Professor Van-Tam told a Downing Street press briefing it was not all ‘doom and gloom’ and that boosters should still trigger protection against hospitalisation and death from the new variant.

But he added the sheer number of mutations on the virus meant it was ‘likely’ to signficantly reduce vaccines ability to prevent infections.

Professor Van-Tam said: ‘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.

‘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.’

Professor Van-Tam likened the battle against the virus to a football match.

He said the UK initially had 11 players to fight off the Wuhan virus following the rolling out of vaccines.

The emergence of Alpha and Delta led to some injuries, he added, but that Omicron was like receiving a couple of yellow cards to key players.

He said: ‘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.’

Professor Wei Shen-Lim, the chair of Britain’s Covid vaccine advisory panel the JCVI, said they had extended the booster programme to ensure more people had the best protection possible against the virus.

He admitted there was likely to be a ‘mismatch’ between vaccines and variants, but said they should still be able to fend off serious disease.

Britain’s current crop of vaccines — Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca — are designed to fight off the Wuhan virus, meaning they are less effective against other strains. 

Professor Shen-Lim told the Downing Street conference: ‘Viruses develop variants that are different to the original virus and increase the likelihood of a mismatch between the vaccine on the one hand and the variant on the other hand.

‘The larger the mismatch between vaccine and variant the greater the likelihood that the level of protection provided by the vaccine will be lowered

‘From what we know about the variant [Omicron] so far it may be that the vaccines that we have at the moment may be less good than against the current circulating delta variant.

‘One way of reducing the impact of this mismatch between vaccine and variant is to increase the strength of the immune response provided by this currency vaccine.

‘In other words, if we can raise the level of the immune response generated by this current vaccine that higher level of immune response will reach out and provide extra protection to mismatched variants.’

He said they were slashing the time between second dose and booster shot from six months to three to ensure people had the best possible protection before a potential winter wave.

He said: ‘With any vaccine during a pandemic we get the greatest benefit of the vaccine both for individuals and society if the vaccine is deployed before the wave starts.

‘If we deploy a vaccine in the middle of a wave or even after the peak of a wave then the benefit from the vaccine is much lower. We therefore want to provide boosters early enough such that it is before any possible wave.

He added: ‘I am not here predicting there will be a wave of the new variant but should there be a wave we want to be in the best possible position.‘

He urged anyone who is already eligible for a booster to get the jab to protect themselves and their families from the virus.

Some eight in ten over-70s have already got their third dose in England — or 6.4million people — but among over-60s less than six in ten have got their boosters, and for over-50s only a third are boosted.

An estimated 23million people are now eligible for boosters in England but have not received their top up jab.

Some 14.9million doses have been dished out so far and, at a rate of 2.1million boosters a week, figures suggest it will take until mid-February for England to complete its second drive. This is near the end of winter.

Over-50s were told they could get their top up jab from six months after their second dose more than two months ago. The drive was expanded to over-40s last week.

Sajid Javid failed to rule out any future lockdown when urged to do so by a Tory MP, but insisted putting the ‘booster programme on steroids’ is the main form of defence.

Richard Drax (South Dorset) told the Health Secretary:

‘None of us underplayed the threat of any new variant and, as (Mr Javid) said today, Covid is not going to go away. It’s not, it’s here for the rest of our lives. The country is learning to live with this disease, it is the only way forward. Can he please reassure me, the House and the country that he will never, ever go back to locking this country down?’

Mr Javid did not answer the question. Instead, he replied:

‘No-one wants to see those kinds of measures, but (Mr Drax) I’m sure will agree with me that, first let me agree with him that Covid is with us to stay and we need to learn to live with it, and the best way I think we can do that is with the primary form of defence that we’ve got, which is our vaccination programme, and I hope he agrees with me that we’re absolutely right to basically put the booster programme on steroids because that will really help us.’

Conservative backbencher Sir Desmond Swayne suggested wearing face coverings to provide protection from the virus is ‘mumbo jumbo’.

He told the Commons:

‘Over the last few months there has been a useful controlled experiment on face coverings given the different policies pursued in Scotland and England. What estimate has he made of the result? It’s mumbo jumbo isn’t it?‘

The Health Secretary said that if Sir Desmond ‘is suggesting that there are mixed views on the efficacy of face coverings in helping to fight this pandemic, he would be right‘.

See more here: dailymail.co.uk

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