There is a "high probability" booster jabs will be needed to prevent a winter Covid-19 coronavirus surge, a vaccines expert has said.
Professor Adam Finn, from the University of Bristol and a member of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), said there is still “a high level of uncertainty” over whether booster vaccinations will be needed this autumn.
But he told Sky News: “In order to avoid the risk of a winter surge, we may well need to use booster doses, particularly I think in the first instance for the people who had the vaccine (the) longest time ago and who are at highest risk of getting seriously ill when they get infected.
“So that would include the very elderly and potentially healthcare workers as well, who got the vaccines earlier on in the year. So I don’t think this is a certainty yet, but I think there’s a high probability that at least some boosting will need to go on this winter.”
He said experts do not know for certain whether everybody will need a vaccination, adding: “We will learn as we go along.”
“It’s not really going to be feasible to go all the way around and do everyone straightaway – as we’ve already seen it has taken more than half a year to work our way through the population,” he said.
“And although vaccine supplies will increase, it’s a massive exercise to go around and immunise everyone again, and that may well not let it not turn out to be necessary, so we’ll see as we go.”
Earlier this week NHS England chief executive Sir Simon Stevens said the NHS will start planning an autumn Covid booster 'next week".
He said: “Next week we’ll also be firing the starting gun across the NHS on planning for the autumn Covid booster and flu campaign, as soon as we get the advice from the JCVI [Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation]," said Sir Simon.
“That campaign will run from the early September through to mid-December, and will further reinforce our shared immunity wall against winter Covid.”
Mr Stevens also said “it’s now clear that the NHS vaccination campaign is clearly breaking the link between Covid infections on the one hand, and hospitalisations – and it appears deaths – on the other".
