When is the next round of Covid vaccine boosters?

Nearly three million adults in England who have not been vaccinated against Covid are being urged to come forward as a fresh wave of the virus sweeps across the country.

Experts say the number of unjabbed adults includes elderly and vulnerable people “who could get extremely sick” if they were infected with the new variants of the coronavirus, the BBC reported.

Pressure is building on the government to offer booster vaccines to many other groups too, as latest figures from the Office for National Statistics show that the number of Covid deaths in the UK has passed 200,000.

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A fifth jab

Following the nationwide rollout of the first two Covid jabs, a booster was offered last year to everyone aged 16 and over, and to some children aged 12 to 15. Another booster was rolled out this spring for people aged 75 and over, residents in care homes, and people aged 12 and over with weakened immune systems.

And in June Professor Adam Finn, a member of the government’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), “suggested a fifth jab will need to be rolled out for the most vulnerable as immunity to the virus gained by previous booster campaigns wanes”, reported The Independent. Finn advised that the rollout should begin in September, when the NHS usually also begins a major push to deliver flu vaccines.

But who will be offered Covid jabs during the next round of boosters remains unclear.

Official interim advice from the JCVI published in May recommended that a booster should be offered in the autumn to all people aged 65 and over; residents and staff in care homes for older adults; front-line health and social care workers and adults aged 16 to 64 in clinical risk groups.

But with Covid “still rampant” and the threat of another “troublesome variant” emerging before winter, the committee’s advice was “provisional”, said The Guardian’s science editor Ian Sample.

A broader campaign?

The Financial Times has speculated that the government is preparing to roll out Covid-19 booster jabs to all adults aged over 50, in a “broader autumn campaign” than its vaccine advisers had previously suggested. Updated advice from the JCVI is expected soon.

Meanwhile, several immunologists and public health experts have advised the government to go even further, offering jabs to all adults over the autumn and winter.

Devi Sridhar, professor of public health at Edinburgh University, told the FT that the booster programme should be broadened to reduce the economic, educational and social costs of the disease – and long Covid – in younger people.

“The problem is that JCVI focuses on avoiding hospitalisation and death from severe Covid,” she said.

However, before he left the post, the former health secretary, Sajid Javid, said that it was “highly unlikely” the programme would be extended to all adults.