Only 'small group' likely to need COVID booster jab this year

A third coronavirus jab will “quite likely” only be needed by a small group of people, a government adviser has said.

Professor Adam Finn, who sits on the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) – which advises the government on vaccine policy – said people who have a weak immune system are likely to need a booster jab.

He said it is still unclear whether a rollout will be necessary for all over-50s.

His comments came after health secretary Sajid Javid confirmed that plans are under way to prepare for an autumn rollout of booster shots, but stressed that ministers were still waiting for advice on exactly who will need one.

Professor Finn told BBC Breakfast: “I think it’s becoming quite clear that there are a small group of people whose immune responses to the first two doses are likely to be inadequate – people who’ve got immunosuppression of one kind or another, perhaps because they’ve got immunodeficiency or they’ve been receiving treatment for cancer or bone marrow transplants or organ transplants, that kind of thing.

“I think it’s quite likely we’ll be advising on a third dose for some of those groups.”

A wider COVID vaccination booster campaign still hangs in the balance, Finn said, adding that experts “need to review evidence as to whether people who receive vaccines early on in the programme are in any serious risk of getting serious disease”.

He said: “We clearly don’t want to be giving vaccines to people that don’t need them.”

Watch: Health secretary announces autumn vaccine booster scheme

It has been reported that ministers are already planning a 2022 booster campaign after securing 32 million Pfizer doses for autumn next year.

The Times reported that the doses cost £1bn.

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said: “We have secured access to more than 500 million doses of COVID vaccines and we are confident our supply will support potential booster programmes in the future.”

On Tuesday, Professor Sir Andrew Pollard, director of the Oxford Vaccine Group, told the All Party Parliamentary Group on Coronavirus that any waning of protection provided by vaccines would be “gradual” and would be picked up quickly through UK surveillance systems.

He also suggested the concept of herd immunity through vaccination was “not a possibility” due to the more transmissible Delta variant of the virus.

“We know very clearly with coronavirus that this current variant, the Delta variant, will still infect people who have been vaccinated and that does mean that anyone who’s still unvaccinated, at some point, will meet the virus,” he told MPs.

A total of 86,780,455 doses of the vaccine have been administered in the UK, with 47,091,889 people receiving a first dose (89%) and 39,688,566 having both doses (75%), the DHSC said.

Figures released on Tuesday showed there were a further 146 people deaths within 28 days of testing positive for COVID, bringing the UK total to 130,503.

This is the highest number of daily reported deaths since 12 March, when 175 were reported.

Separate figures published by the Office for National Statistics show there have been 155,000 deaths registered in the UK where COVID was mentioned on the death certificate.

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