Professor Azra Ghani, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Imperial College London, said priority for which groups should be in line for a vaccine jab could change during the rollout.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme about her modelling of vaccine prioritisation, she said giving jabs first to the “most vulnerable”, such as the oldest in society, was a way of reducing illness as clinical trials had shown the vaccines currently developed “reduce illness and particularly severe illness and hospitalisation”.
But how the priority ranking works further down the line will depend on the stage of the epidemic, she added.
Prof Ghani said: “Once we go below the age of 50, then the risk of severe outcomes really does drop off quite dramatically.
“Then, I think, we need to think about what stage the epidemic is in, what the supply looks like and what the priorities are.
“So, risk groups may be one of those but if the epidemic has started to decline – we may have moved into the summer period – it may be that we want to protect key industries.”
