Britain’s Covid booster vaccine decision is expected ‘imminently’

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No10’s top vaccine advisory group will meet today to discuss whether or not all Britons should be offered booster Covid vaccines this autumn.

Health chiefs say a decision is expected ‘imminently’, with experts now trying to agree on exactly who will need a top-up jab.

But one adviser on the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, which guides ministers on the roll-out, today hinted only a fraction of the population – the most vulnerable – will be offered boosters.

Professor Adam Finn warned more evidence was needed before the panel can make a ‘firm decision on a much broader booster programme’.

He said giving third doses to entire age groups won’t ‘make very much difference’ in the fight against the virus.

Meanwhile, the US yesterday confirmed that top-up jabs will be available for all over-18s from September 20.

The British Government wants to follow suit, and has laid out plans to dish out boosters at the same time as the flu vaccine at the start of next month.

But ministers won’t press ahead with any move until they receive the advice from the JCVI.

Experts have questioned whether top-ups are even needed yet, saying there is no concrete evidence that protection given by two doses has started to wane.

This is despite a study showing double-jabbed Brits who catch the Delta Covid variant are just as likely to spread the virus as the unvaccinated.

A World Health Organization boss yesterday compared booster roll-outs to giving life jackets to people who already have them, while others drown.

The same argument — that extra doses should be given to third-world countries — was used to argue against vaccinating children.

Professor Finn told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘I think there’s enough evidence, and I think we’ll be imminently deciding, that there will be some people who will need a third dose, particularly people who we know are very unlikely to be well protected by those first two doses.

‘But I think we do need more evidence before we can make a firm decision on a much broader booster programme.’

Discussing the potential of expanding the vaccine rollout to all over-12s, he said it is ‘hard to predict really which way that’s going to go’.

It comes as the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency approved the Moderna vaccine for children aged 12 to 17.

The UK’s medicines watchdog approved the Pfizer jab for the same group in June.

But those aged 12 to 15 can only get the jab if they are clinically vulnerable. 

Professor Finn said JCVI were looking at data from other countries and have concerns about very rare cases of heart inflammation side effects in young people.

Young people ‘very seldom get seriously ill’ with the virus, so it is unclear whether they will benefit from a vaccine, he said.  

He warned earlier this morning that routinely dishing out boosters for all people over a certain age group would not ‘make very much difference’ in the fight against the virus.

He told BBC Breakfast: ‘I think at this point we need to focus on individuals who are more likely, if you like, to get sick again if they’ve not got a booster.

‘And in fact we’ll be having a JCVI meeting this morning to discuss exactly that.

‘So, trying to identify the people who are really at risk and really need that third dose.

‘I think it’s less clear really whether a third dose in a more general way, for sort of all people above a certain age, is really going to make very much difference.

‘But at this point I think the main message is that the direct protective effects of these vaccines is excellent i.e. if you get the vaccination you’re in a much better place in terms of getting sick.

‘But the ability of the programme to actually stop the virus from circulating around in the population is less good than we’d hoped.’ 

Health Secretary Sajid Javid said last week that the UK ‘will be able to start the booster programme’ from next month, if the Government is given the green light.  

It comes as the White House revealed yesterday that booster Pfizer and Moderna shots will be available to all adults in just over a month.

The decision is pending approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and a recommendation made by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s advisory committee.

US Surgeon General Dr Vivek Murthy said at a news conference yesterday that recent data ‘makes clear that protection against mild and moderate disease has decreased over time’.

He added: ‘This is likely due to both waning immunity and the strength of the widespread Delta variant.’

Pfizer, which has raked in £24.5billion in sales from this year alone, has also said boosters are needed due to waning immunity.

Meanwhile, AstraZeneca, which is making the vaccine at-cost, said there is no evidence yet that third doses of its jab are required.

The UK has bough 60million Pfizer doses for this winter and has pledged to donate spare vaccines. 

The UK and US are currently experiencing similar infection levels, with the more infectious Delta strain the dominant variant.

And 433 positive tests per million people were recorded yesterday in the UK, while the equivalent figure in the US is 416.

But Dr Michael Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organization’s health emergencies programme, said boosters are equivalent to giving life jackets to people who already have them, while others drown.

He said: ‘The reality is right now today, if we think about this in terms of an analogy, we’re planning to hand out extra life jackets to people who already have life jackets, while we’re leaving other people to drown without a single life jacket.

‘That’s the reality. Science is not certain on this, there are clearly more data to collect.

‘But the fundamental ethical reality is we’re handing out second life jackets while leaving millions and millions of people without anything to protect them.’

And Professor Sir Andrew Pollard, one of the scientists behind the Oxford AstraZeneca jab, also said vaccines should be sent abroad before healthy adults receive a booster.

He told The Times: ‘The greatest priority for vaccines in the world is for those who remain without protection but are at high risk of dying from Covid, including older adults, those with health conditions and health care workers, wherever they live.

‘Those with zero doses have a lot to gain from receiving a vaccine today and so should be ahead of those who are already two doses up.’ 

Dr Muge Cevik, a clinical lecturer in infectious disease and medical virology at the University of St Andrews, tweeted: ‘I’m truly disappointed. This decision is not justifiable at all looking at this data. 

‘We are going to use up millions of doses to reduce the small risk of mild infections in fully protected [people with] a tiny risk of hospitalisation, while most of the world waits for a first dose.’

And Dr Jake Dunning, a senior research fellow in the Epidemic Diseases Research Group Oxford (ERGO) at the University of Oxford, replied on Twitter: ‘Me too. There’s no reasonable defence for booster for all policy currently. 

‘The reality seems to be that lives in rich countries are believed to be worth more than the lives of fellow humans in poorer countries. 

‘Even considering obligations of states to their own, it’s immoral.’

And WHO chief scientist Dr Soumya Swaminathan said that if all high-income countries decide to give boosters to those in their population who are aged over 50 that will amount to ‘close to a billion doses’.

She said the ‘right thing to do’ is to ‘wait for the science to tell us’ which groups of people might need boosters and when.

There is a distinction to be made about people who are immunocompromised needing a third dose, but this is a small number of people who ‘should be protected’, she said.

Of the idea of everyone in high-income countries getting a booster jab, she said: ‘This is an impossible situation and I’m afraid this will only lead to more variants, to more escape variants, and perhaps we are heading into even more dire situations.’

Just one per cent of the population in some countries – such as Mali, Chad and Papau New Guinea – have received a single dose of the vaccine, according to Our World in Data.

Meanwhile, more than 60 per cent of the entire population in other countries Portugal, Canada, Spain and the UK – are fully immunised.

Professor Peter Openshaw, a member of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag) which advises the Government, said more evidence is needed on the benefits that booster jabs might bring.

Professor Openshaw, who is also an expert in experimental medicine at Imperial College London, told Times Radio: ‘In terms of boosters, we need more evidence really about what benefits those boosters will bring, because we can’t just look at the antibody levels and think that that equates to levels of protection.

‘It still seems that you get a lot of protection from these vaccines, even if the antibody levels have drifted down to some sort of stable level.’ 

It comes as researchers at the University of Oxford revealed yesterday that double-jabbed people who catch the Delta variant are just as likely to spread the virus as unvaccinated people.

The study, based on data from 700,000 Britons, is the largest yet to evaluate vaccine effectiveness against the Delta variant, which has been dominant in the UK since May. 

The scientists found fully immunised people are 82 per cent less likely to be infected than the un-jabbed.

But those who who do get infected have a the same amount of the virus in their nose and throat as those who have not been vaccinateed, meaning they ‘shed’ the same amount of virus when they cough or sneeze.

Experts said the findings strengthened the argument for a booster Covid jab programme this autumn.

However, the study stressed that two doses remain remarkably effective at preventing death and hospitalisation.

And even though the viral load may peak at similar levels in the vaccinated and unvaccinated, scientists say it’s possible jabbed people clear the infection quicker.