Free COVID boosters and flu jabs will be axed for middle-aged Brits this winter.
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) issued its NHS guidance saying that COVID-19 top-up jabs from autumn will no longer be offered to otherwise healthy people aged 50 to 64.
Similar advice had already been published for flu, meaning 12 million middle-aged Brits will no longer be eligible for the free jabs. It follows reports the NHS will delay vaccine rollout with the drive not set to step up until October to maximise protection for over 65s and others eligible during the peak winter months.
JCVI said to optimise winter protection jabs should be administered by early December. NHS England will confirm its jab drive strategy in the coming days but hopes almost halving the numbers eligible from 26 million will enable a much faster rollout.
Dr Mary Ramsay, director of public health Programmes at the UK Health Security Agency, said the COVID-19 virus had not gone away and they expect to see it circulating more widely over the winter months with the number of people getting ill increasing.
She said that the booster was being offered to those at higher risk of severe illness and by taking up the booster vaccine this autumn, would increase protection ahead of winter, when respiratory viruses were typically at their peak.
Health Secretary Steve Barclay said that he’s now accepted the advice from the JCVI on eligibility for the 2023 autumn booster programme, to protect those most vulnerable from COVID. NHS England will confirm details on how and when eligible people can access the autumn booster vaccine shortly, and I would urge anyone invited, including those yet to have their first jab, to come forward as soon as possible.
It follows warnings at a recent NHS England board meeting that Britain is expecting one of its worst-ever flu seasons. Australia, where the flu season usually predicts what Europe can expect, is going through one of its worst on record, with children making up four in five flu-related hospital admissions.
Before the pandemic flu jabs were offered to healthy adults over the age of 65, as well as to children and younger adults with health conditions.
During the pandemic, the rollout of flu jabs was extended to protect those aged 50 to 64 in line with those eligible for COVID boosters. Flu jabs can be purchased privately from High Street pharmacists for about £20.
The COVID vaccines don’t appear to protect us anyhow. People were having the COVID vaccine and they were still coming down with the virus.
The only way the NHS is going back to how it once was is if it gets the overhaul that it’s needed for decades, but sadly it might be too late for that after what the Tories have done to it with their decimation and the encouragement of privatisation.
Firstly, they need to get rid of some, or most of all the fat cat CEOs because since they were introduced the NHS has slowly but surely gone downhill.
The most lucrative job is working in NHS management with their massive earnings and very little work.
And now they want us to pay for the flu and COVID jabs, so capitalism rides on the back of the least well-off because, of course, it’s all about money and lining their pockets.
Cut this, stop that and pretty soon the NHS will stand for ‘No Health Service’ and ultimately the NHS will be a thing of the past, and yet they will talk about it like they financed it themselves, but yet they didn’t, we the taxpayer did!
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 