The primary aim of the COVID-19 vaccination programme continues to be the prevention of severe disease, namely hospitalisation and death, arising from COVID-19. The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) has recommended a targeted approach to COVID-19 vaccination focussed on those most vulnerable from COVID-19, including older individuals and individuals with specified existing clinical conditions.

On 8 August 2023, the Government accepted advice from the JCVI on who should be offered a COVID-19 vaccine in the autumn 2023 booster programme. This includes residents in a care home for older adults, all adults aged 65 years old and over, persons aged six months to 64 years old in a clinical risk group, frontline health and social care workers, persons aged 12 to 64 years old who are household contacts and persons aged 16 to 64 years old who are carers. For the autumn 2023 campaign, the JCVI have advised the Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA monovalent XBB vaccine for use in individuals from six months old and the Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA (Comirnaty) bivalent Original/Omicron BA.4-5 vaccine for use in individuals aged 12 years old and over. All individuals who are currently eligible for COVID-19 vaccination are therefore eligible to receive a Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. There are no plans to expand the eligibility criteria for the autumn campaign. The JCVI will continue to review evidence and will provide further advice regarding future vaccination programmes in due course.

The JCVI has advised that further vaccination doses provide additional protection from serious outcomes from COVID-19. Whilst natural immunity alone provides good levels of protection against severe COVID-19, the combination of natural and vaccine-induced immunity, also known as hybrid immunity, is associated with even higher levels of protection.

The Government has procured 40 million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech and 100 million doses of the AstraZeneca/University of Oxford vaccines.

The UK was the first country in the world to start a vaccination programme using these vaccines. Due to our swift and decisive action there has been a regular and steady supply of vaccine doses arriving into the UK since early December 2020.

As of 20 January 2021, almost five million people across the UK have been vaccinated with the first dose of the vaccine. We continue to work to meet our target of vaccinating all four priority groups, as advised by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, by the middle of February.

Vaccines are a precious resource in very high demand across the world; therefore, for security reasons it is not possible to provide detail about the size of our supplies and exact detail about deliveries.