Booster jabs will be offered to everyone over 18 in England from this week after Boris Johnson last night declared an “Omicron emergency”.
In a televised address, the prime minister warned that “no one should be in any doubt, there is a tidal wave of Omicron coming” as he set a new target to offer boosters to all adults in the UK by the end of December.
With the UK’s Covid-19 alert level raised to four, meaning a high or rising level of transmission, Johnson has set an ambitious plan to give boosters to all adults who want one by the end of the month. But how will it work and how feasible is it?
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Who is now eligible?
The government says about 15 million people will be eligible for a booster jab. Anyone aged over 18 who had their second vaccine at least three months ago will be able to book a slot or attend a walk-in clinic.
Can I book online?
“In most cases yes,” said The Times, but the system will not be open for 18- to 30-year-olds to book an appointment until Wednesday. Johnson yesterday said online booking was the best way for people to “guarantee” their slot, adding that in some places people could attend a walk-in centre from today.
How fast will it go?
To work, the plan will need to move very quickly.
James Fransham, a data journalist for The Economist, tweeted that if everyone eligible comes forward, a total of 29,984,016 people would need to be jabbed. “That would mean about doing about 1.5m inoculations a day,” he added.
Even if the 10 million adults who have not been vaccinated at all yet chose not to be jabbed, the new target would still mean vaccinating some 20 million people – or one million people a day – before the end of the year.
To put this in perspective, The Guardian reported that the record number of jabs administered in one day across the UK to date was 844,285 on 20 March. The most since the booster rollout began in September was 699,192 on 10 November.
How will it be done?
Politico’s London Playbook was told by a government insider that the booster expansion is expected to focus on walk-ins rather than bookings. The source added that there would be a large increase in walk-in capacity over the next fortnight in football stadiums and other new venues.
New vaccination sites will also be set up across the country, and their opening hours will be extended to include weekends, early mornings and late evenings.
Some 50 military planning experts have been drafted in to help with the logistics, a government insider told the news site, adding that they were “throwing the kitchen sink” at the effort. Thousands more volunteer vaccinators are being trained to join the expanded rollout.
The sudden acceleration will, however, have a significant impact on routine healthcare.
Nursing leaders have voiced fears about the “scale and pace” of the booster programme, Sky News said, especially given that the NHS is “already beyond full stretch”.
The NHS has warned that the booster rollout will impact “routine” visits, the broadcaster added. GPs have been asked to “clinically prioritise their services to free up maximal capacity” to support the vaccination rollout, as well as also delivering critical appointments such as cancer, urgent and emergency care.
“Medical need does not magically disappear” over the Christmas period, The Guardian added, so “the next few weeks, possibly months, are going to be tough for anyone who relies on the health service as well as those who work in it”.
Will it work?
The government insisted that anyone who wants to get vaccinated in the next three weeks should be able to, though in some cases this might mean travelling to a walk-in centre.
Johnson was even more bullish, declaring that “everyone eligible aged 18 and over in England will have the chance to get their booster before the new year”.
BBC political editor Laura Kuennsberg said that delivering the plan “won’t be easy”, adding that the “significant knock” Johnson’s reputation has taken in recent weeks might mean the public is not willing to listen to him.
Having crunched the numbers in detail, The Economist’s Fransham said the prime minister has “set himself a pretty insurmountable task”.
