All over-50s to be offered Covid booster this autumn after jump in infections

Sajid Javid warned of rising infections before he quit, as experts fear new surge

Anyone over 50 is due to be invited for a fourth jab (Getty Images)

All over-50s are set to be offered another Covid-19 booster jab this autumn as cases of the virus continue to shoot up.

Infections in the UK jumped by more than half a million in a week, to 2.3 million, latest official estimates show.

The rise is understood to have prompted the government to defy advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), which had recommended only over-65s be offered a booster in the autumn, along with younger people at risk, care home residents and staff, and health and social care workers.

Before resigning on Tuesday evening, then health secretary Sajid Javid warned the cabinet about the rising infections.

Mr Javid told the Financial Times he had asked his team to be ready to roll out a third booster – and fourth jab – to the over-50s and above, which will involve inoculating an extra six million middle-aged people.

As Omicron sub-variants continue to push up infections and hospital admissions, Pfizer and Moderna are working on developing boosters specifically for those variants.

If approved by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, the new shots will be considered by the JCVI for the booster programme, expected to start from September.

Official data show that in summer 2020, below 0.1 per cent of the population in England were testing positive, while in 2021 it was 1.57 per cent. Now it is 3.35 per cent.

Already almost one in 10 hospital beds in England is taken by a Covid patient, NHS statistics show.

But health chiefs fear an autumn surge in the pandemic in the UK. The current wave, caused by the BA.4 and BA.5 variants, is likely to be larger than the previous one in April, according to the UK Health Security Agency.

Mary Ramsay, director of clinical programmes, said: “We continue to see an increase in Covid-19 data, with a rise in case rates and hospitalisations in those aged 65 years and over, and outbreaks in care homes.

“We can also now see a rise in ICU admissions in older age groups.

“Vaccination remains the best defence against severe disease and hospitalisation.”