People as young as 40 could get the Covid vaccine next month.
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation is to decide who should be next to get the jab after the most vulnerable and over 50s have all been offered a first dose.
Age should be the dominant factor in deciding the next phase of the coronavirus vaccine rollout, the head of the JCVI has said.
Professor Wei Shen Lim told an online audience of doctors that age “dominates by a long way” while underlying health conditions contribute “some increased risk”, the Daily Telegraph reports.
Meanwhile, the Daily Mail reported that the Government is set to recommend the next phase of the UK’s vaccine programme continues on the basis of age, rather than prioritising key workers.
That could mean people aged between 40 and 49 being offered a jab in March.
The top nine categories set out by the JCVI should all have been vaccinated by March 24 - and the project could then move on to those aged over 40.
The JCVI has not yet published plans on who should be vaccinated beyond the top nine groups, but has faced calls for police officers and teachers to be prioritised in the next stage.
Appearing at an online event on Thursday night, Prof Lim said: “Age dominates by a long way, and almost all the underlying health conditions contribute some increased risk, but not a huge amount of increased risk.”
Prof Lim said that one of the “great successes” of the vaccination programme had been the rate of deployment and this was now the “most important factor”, according to the Daily Telegraph.
The newspaper also reports that the first “real world” data examining the impact of the vaccination programme suggests both the Oxford and Pfizer jabs cut two thirds of infections and transmissions.
