Repeat Covid jabs could be offered for ‘years to come’, an expert has said.
A SAGE advisor has warned at Covid is 'likely' to turn into an endemic and Brits could be be offered top up vaccines for years.
Professor Mike Tildesley, a member of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Modelling group (Spi-M), said that repeat vaccinations could keep Covid at bay.
READ MORE: More eligible groups can book Covid booster appointment through an online portal
This comes after the online portal to book booster jabs opened this morning in Scotland.
It is open to those aged 50 to 59, unpaid carers who are 16 and over, and over-16s who are household contacts of immunosuppressed individuals.
Speaking to Sky News he said: "In the longer term, Covid is likely to become endemic and we probably are going to have to manage it with repeated vaccination campaigns for years to come."
But Professor Tildesley is 'cautiously optimistic' that we will be able to enjoy a 'normal Christmas' this year after festive plans were thrown into chaos last year with last minute restrictions.
When asked about Christmas, Professor Tildesley said: "I’m cautiously optimistic. If we look at (the trends) we can see that although there has been quite a lot of variation over the past few weeks, and we’re still reporting very high numbers of cases, the total number of daily hospital admissions and the total number of deaths are quite a long way below where we were in November last year, which should give us some level of confidence."
He added: "The booster vaccination campaign is going far better than it was a few weeks ago, but there’s still quite a lot of eligible people who have not yet had their booster jab.
"So it’s really important if we do want to avoid restrictions ramping up that we get as many of those people out to get their booster jabs as possible over the next few weeks.
"Our modelling suggests that, yes, it could make quite a big difference to driving transmission down to low levels."
