Covid-19: Millions could be offered booster vaccinations from September

Covid-19 booster vaccinations should be offered in England from September 2021, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation has advised. But some experts have questioned the necessity and the practicalities of the plan.

JCVI’s interim advice,1 which will be updated by September after further data analysis, could lead to millions of the people who are most vulnerable to covid-19 being offered the booster vaccination in a two stage approach alongside the annual flu vaccination programme.

JCVI advised that in the first stage a third dose of covid-19 booster and annual flu vaccine should be offered as soon as possible from September 2021 to immunosuppressed adults aged 16 or over, people living in residential care homes for older adults, all adults aged 70 years or over, clinically extremely vulnerable adults aged 16 or over; and frontline health and social care workers.

The second stage would see the covid …