People in England will need booster Covid jabs to count as fully vaccinated in the new year, Health Secretary Sajid Javid has now announced.
Mr Javid announced the move to MPs in a Commons statement this afternoon (December 13).
He said the covid pass exemption will be changed from two vaccines to three “once all adults have had a reasonable chance to get their booster jab”. This means people looking to go to large venues in the new year will need three covid jabs to be permitted entry.
People will still be able to show proof of recent a negative coronavirus test to enter large events.
The Health Secretary also outlined the government’s plans to increase booster vaccinations across the country.
“Until now the highest number of jabs that we’ve delivered in a single day in the UK was over 840,000,” he said. “We’ll not only need to match that but we will need to beat that every day.
“But we can and we’ve got a plan to try and do it. We’re opening more vaccination sites including pop up and mobile sites that’ll be working seven days a week.
“We are training thousands more volunteer vaccinators, we’re asking GPs and pharmacies to do more and we’re drafting in 42 military planning teams across every region of our country.”
The government’s plans to raise the covid pass exemption to three jabs comes a day after the UK’s Covid-19 alert level was raised to 4 amid the prevalence of the Omicron variant.
“I’m afraid we’re now facing an emergency in our battle with the new variant Omicron,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in a statement to the nation yesterday. “It is now clear that two doses of vaccine are simply not enough to give the level of protection we all need.
“But the good news is that our scientists are confident that with a third dose, a booster dose, we can all bring our level of protection back up.”
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