People as young as 18 could receive the vaccine in the coming days if they live with older relatives, in a bid to tackle the crop of Covid outbreaks caused by the Indian variant, a minister has confirmed.
Nadhim Zahawi, the vaccines minister, said that pilots in Luton appeared to have been successful and it was now being considered as “a tool in our armoury”.
“Clinicians will make recommendations, and we will flex vaccination programme accordingly,” he told BBC Breakfast.
It comes as a rapid response surge team, with 100 nurses, public health advisers and environmental health officers, is deployed to Bolton to assist local authorities.
Surge testing will launch shortly in Formby on Merseyside. It is already taking place in Bolton.
Mr Zahawi told Sky News that Monday’s easements would go ahead “because the vaccines are delivering and vaccines are keeping people out of hospitals and away from severe infection”.
But he noted the situation was being carefully monitored, with Boris Johnson receiving daily briefings on the changing data, saying: “We rule nothing out, whatever action we take regionally or nationally.”
Meanwhile Paul Hunter, professor in medicine at the University of East Anglia, said the Indian variant was spreading faster than the Kent variant in a number of areas around the UK.
“Indeed it’s now in most regions of the UK, with the possible exception of Yorkshire and Humber in the North East, which seem to have very few cases so far,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
He said the “big question is how many of people who are getting the Indian variant will end up requiring hospitalisation” and that this could delay life going back to normal on 21 June.
He said: “I think the step four is in doubt in June now, but we really need to see what impact it has on severe disease before we can really be certain…
“If the epidemic continues to increase, if the Indian variant of the epidemic continues to increase at the same rate as it has over recent weeks, we’re going to have a huge number of cases by June.”
