Woman receiving a booster jab

The race is on to get people boosted before Omicron sweeps the country this winter (Picture: EPA/NNP)

Booster appointments are officially open to anyone over the age of 30 from tomorrow.


The national booking system will be accessible to 30-39-year-olds for the first time, as long as three months have passed since their second dose.


There are around 7.5 million people in the age group and 3.5 million of those are eligible from Monday.


The government is racing to get third jabs into people’s arms as fears mount over a wave of Omicron infections.


Preliminary data revealed by the government suggests two doses may not offer much protection against the new variant but a booster dose will.


The expansion of the programme comes after scientists advising ministers revealed new modelling which predicts deaths could hit 75,000 this winter.


Health secretary Sajid Javid said: ‘The Covid-19 booster programme is accelerating rapidly and more than 22 million people in the UK have already received their top-up, securing vital protection ahead of Christmas.




Shoppers, some wearing face coverings to combat the spread of the coronavirus walk along Oxford Street in central London

The government has left the door open to rolling out restrictions over and above Plan B measures (Picture: AFP)

‘This is our national mission – the most recent data shows boosters are the essential defence against Omicron and we are doing everything in our power to get jabs into arms as quickly as possible.’


The new variant is spreading rapidly and is expected to become the dominant strain within the next few weeks.


Previous illness and vaccines are less likely to prevent a person getting infected because Omicron is so highly mutated but studies into the effect of a third dose have raised hopes serious cases can be driven down.


Analysis of 581 people infected with the new strain showed the AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines provided ‘much lower’ levels of protection when compared with the Delta variant.


But it said preliminary data showed vaccine effectiveness ‘considerably increased’ in the early period after a booster dose, providing around 70 to 75% protection against symptomatic infection.


As many as 75,000 could be killed by the Omicron variant this winter unless new measures are rolled out, according to a new study.




NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE, ENGLAND - DECEMBER 08: William Campbell from Gateshead attends the Centre for Life Vaccination Centre to receive his Covid-19 booster on December 08, 2021 in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. The Centre for Life vaccination centre was one of the first such large-scale sites opened in the country as the UK rolled out its Covid-19 vaccine programme. The site initially welcomed NHS workers before opening to the public in January. (Photo by Ian Forsyth/Getty Images)

Early studies suggest the variant can beat two doses but a third still offers highly effective protection (Picture: Getty)

Experts from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), who also sit on the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (SPI-M) or the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), released the alarming modelling yesterday.


In a worst case scenario event, where vaccines provide lower protection than hoped and the variant proves to be more able to escape the immune response than feared, there could 492,000 hospital admissions and 74,800 deaths over five months.


The modelling raises the prospect of new social-distancing measures having to be brought in to help keep hospital admissions down.


But professor Paul Hunter, professor in medicine at University of East Anglia, said any model is ‘only as good as its assumptions’


He added that one key assumption in this model is that severity of disease outcomes for Omicron is the same as for Delta.


Prof Hunter said: ‘Although we will not know for certain for a few weeks, indications from South Africa do suggest that Omicron does cause less severe disease than Delta.’


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