Race To Return To 500,000 UK Jabs A Day As Omicron Concern Grows

Ministers want NHS to reduce booster waiting time to three months

- Rowena Mason and Andrew Gregory

Ministers are targeting a return to half a million UK Covid jabs a day as the waiting time for boosters was cut to three months in an attempt to outpace the Omicron variant that scientists believe is already spreading in the community.

Confirmed Omicron cases rose to 11 in England and Scotland yesterday, with scientific advisers braced for hundreds more to be detected in the next week or so.

From today, masks will be mandatory on public transport including airports and stations and in shops – including hair salons and takeaways but not pubs or restaurants – to slow the spread of Omicron, which is feared to be more transmissible with the potential to evade vaccines.

The NHS is set to confirm an expansion of the vaccine programme this week after the government’s advisers said all adults should be offered boosters and made the surprise recommendation of a three rather than six-month wait after a second dose.

A senior government source told the Guardian ministers were aiming for a “significant acceleration” from the current 2.4m boosters a week to 3.5m or 500,000 a day – a return to the huge national effort seen in the early days of the vaccination campaign. “That is the early plan but it won’t happen overnight,” they said. Currently, boosters are restricted to over-40s more than six months after their previous jab. The first new cohort of people to be offered boosters is likely to be those over40s and the clinically vulnerable who are more than three but less than six months past their second jabs. The next tranches will be under-40s in staggered age groups from oldest to youngest. Children aged 12 to 15 will be offered second doses for the first time, and people who are severely immunosuppressed will get boosters in addition to three primary doses.