U.K. Becomes Latest Country to Ban Covid Boosters for Under-50s

Covid booster doses will no longer be available to healthy people under 50 from next month, the Government has said. The reason given by the JCVI, the Government’s vaccine advisory body, is because “the transition continues away from a pandemic emergency response towards pandemic recovery”. A number of countries have imposed similar bans on boosters for healthy under-50s, a trend that has been linked by observers to safety concerns, though public authorities have not confirmed this. The U.K. will continue to offer the first two doses to over-16s.

The Government has also accepted JCVI advice that another round of Covid booster jabs should be dished out this autumn to the over-50s and other risk groups. The advisers have also called for senior citizens and those who are immunosuppressed to receive an extra booster dose this spring. These will be the seventh and eight jabs for thousands of Brits. The Mail has more.

Under the 2022 autumn Covid booster campaign which began in early September last year, over-50s, residents and staff at care homes for older adults and frontline health and social care workers are eligible for a jab.   

On top of these groups, five to 49 year-olds who are a clinical risk group, live with an immunosuppressed person or are carers have also been offered a booster – similar to that for the annual flu vaccine. 

According to the latest data, published on January 15th, 64.5% of those aged 50 and over and 82.4% of those aged 75 and over have received their [autumn] jab. 

In England, the closure of the autumn booster campaign and the first [spring] booster offer will be on February 12th. 

The JCVI also advised that the booster third dose which became available in 2021, will no longer be offered to those aged between 16 and 49-years-old who are not in a clinical risk group, from February 12th, “as the transition continues away from a pandemic emergency response towards pandemic recovery”.

Professor Wei Shen Lim, Chair of COVID-19 vaccination on the JCVI, said: “The COVID-19 vaccination programme continues to reduce severe disease across the population, while helping to protect the NHS.

“That is why we have advised planning for further booster vaccines for persons at higher risk of serious illness through an autumn booster programme later this year.”

She added: “We will very shortly also provide final advice on a spring booster programme for those at greatest risk.” …

The NHS will continue to operate a smaller scale vaccine offer from mid-February onwards to ensure those eligible for first and second doses can still get their jabs, it said today.

It comes as the FDA in the U.S. is set to recommend annual Covid boosters for Americans of all ages.

This article originally appeared in the DailySceptic