The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation has recommended the coronavirus booster campaign be extended to all over-18s, amid fears about the new omicron variant of coronavirus.
The gap between the second and booster doses of a vaccine should also be cut to three months, experts say. The government is expected to implement the recommendations while the NHS will take responsibility for rolling them out and calling forward younger adults.
It came after leaders in Scotland and Wales demanded Boris Johnson introduce tougher border quarantine rules for travellers visiting the UK.
Nicola Sturgeon said she and Mark Drakeford, her Welsh counterpart, wrote to the prime minister asking him to increase the self-isolation requirement to eight days with two PCR tests. However, this was rejected by Downing Street due to its possible economic impact.
At a press conference, the Scottish first minister said: “There is no doubt that [omicron] presents potentially the most challenging development in the course of the pandemic for quite some time.”
