Health secretary warns of bad flu season due to concerning levels of immunity
Sajid Javid has told Sky News he is “concerned” that the UK could witness a bad flu season due to there being “a lot less immunity” around to the virus because of the COVID restrictions that were in place last winter.
The health secretary said the government is preparing to roll out “the biggest flu vaccination programme this country has ever seen” following concerns that many more elderly and vulnerable people could contract the virus than that did last year.
Mr Javid added that, for those over 50, “getting your flu jab is going to be as important as having your COVID jab“.
In July, the Department for Health and Social Care announced it would roll out the biggest flu programme in the country’s history from September
Back in July, the government announced plans for more than 35 million people, including secondary school pupils, to be offered a free flu vaccine this winter.
Ministers said the flu vaccine, to be rolled out from September, would be available to:
• All children aged two and three on 31 August 2021
• All children in primary and all children in school years 7 to 11 in secondary school
• Those aged six months to under 50 years in clinical risk groups
• Pregnant women
• Those aged 50 years and over
• Unpaid carers
• Close contacts of immunocompromised individuals
• Frontline health and adult social care staff
The plans stated that those aged two and three, primary school children and secondary school children up to Year 11 would be offered the nasal spray vaccine.
Unveiling the plans two months ago, the Department of Health and Social Care acknowledged that “it is possible there will be higher levels of flu this winter”.
Meanwhile, Dr Yvonne Doyle, medical director at Public Health England (PHE), has previously warned that the coming flu season is “highly unpredictable”.
“The flu vaccine is safe, effective and protects millions of people each year from what can be a devastating illness,” Dr Doyle said in July.
Mr Javid told Sky News that, for those over 50, ‘getting your flu jab is going to be as important as having your COVID jab’
“Last winter, flu activity was extremely low, but this is no reason for complacency as it means less people have built up a defence against the virus. Combined with the likelihood that COVID-19 will still be circulating, this makes the coming flu season highly unpredictable.”
Speaking on Sky News’ Trevor Phillips on Sunday programme, Mr Javid said flu jab programme preparations were under way.
“Winter, autumn, it is not just COVID that likes that part of the year – it is other viruses too,” he said.
“You have just mentioned another really important thing that we have got to prepare for and that is flu.
“I have already mentioned the preparations for boosters and I think that is going to be an important part of our defence, but when it comes to flu, what we have been planning the past few weeks is the biggest flu vaccination programme this country has ever seen.
“Why am I concerned about that? Because last year we didn’t have much flu because of all the other controls that were in place. And that means there is a lot less immunity around to flu than normal.
“And we know in some years, in a bad flu year, just how terrible it can be.
Nicola Sturgeon said the UK is going into ‘a difficult and challenging period’
“So, alongside our continuing COVID vaccine programme, we are going to have our biggest ever flu programme – and I would say to those people listening, certainly those who are over 50, getting your flu jab is going to be as important as having your COVID jab.”
Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon later told Sky News: “We are going into, as everybody across the UK is, a very challenging and difficult winter period – so it is really important that we keep a very close eye on what is happening.”
On Thursday, the health secretary said he was “confident” COVID-19 booster jabs will start being administered later this month after the UK’s medicines regulator said the Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccines are safe to use.
The move by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) would allow the government to begin a COVID-19 booster programme if it decides to proceed with one.
Mr Javid said the news is “very welcome” but he will wait for a final opinion from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) before giving the go-ahead.
However, he added: “I’m confident our booster programme will start later this month but I’m still waiting for final advice.”
The MHRA issued guidance saying Pfizer boosters can be given to anyone, regardless of which doses they have had previously, while AstraZeneca boosters should only be provided to those who previously had that jab.
The WHO’s Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has told wealthier countries to refrain from offering booster shots until the end of the year
The JCVI is examining whether booster shots are necessary for the elderly and vulnerable, with planning under way for a potential rollout this month.
Committee members are expected to decide who should get a third jab in the next few days.
But the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has told wealthier countries to refrain from offering booster shots until the end of the year in order to prioritise first doses for people in poorer countries.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was “appalled” by comments from pharmaceutical manufacturers who claim vaccine supplies are high enough to allow for both third jabs and vaccinations in other countries.
Last week, the government announced that around half a million people who have a severely weakened immune system will be offered a third COVID-19 jab.
This extra dose will be offered to anyone over 12 who was severely immunosuppressed at the time of their first or second dose, including those with leukaemia, advanced HIV, and recent organ transplants – but it comes separately from the plans for a booster programme, which would see a larger number of people offered a third COVID jab.
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Rachel Reeves has told Sky News she is looking at both tax rises and spending cuts in the budget, in her first interview since being briefed on the scale of the fiscal black hole she faces.
“Of course, we’re looking at tax and spending as well,” the chancellor said when asked how she would deal with the country’s economic challenges in her 26 November statement.
Politics Hub: Follow latest updates
Ms Reeves was shown the first draft of the Office for Budget Responsibility’s (OBR) report, revealing the size of the black hole she must fill next month, on Friday 3 October.
She has never previously publicly confirmed tax rises are on the cards in the budget, going out of her way to avoid mentioning tax in interviews two weeks ago.
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Chancellor pledges not to raise VAT
Cabinet ministers had previously indicated they did not expect future spending cuts would be used to ensure the chancellor met her fiscal rules.
Ms Reeves also responded to questions about whether the economy was in a “doom loop” of annual tax rises to fill annual black holes. She appeared to concede she is trapped in such a loop.
Asked if she could promise she won’t allow the economy to get stuck in a doom loop cycle, Ms Reeves replied: “Nobody wants that cycle to end more than I do.”
She said that is why she is trying to grow the economy, and only when pushed a third time did she suggest she “would not use those (doom loop) words” because the UK had the strongest growing economy in the G7 in the first half of this year.
What’s facing Reeves?
Ms Reeves is expected to have to find up to £30bn at the budget to balance the books, after a U-turn on winter fuel and welfare reforms and a big productivity downgrade by the OBR, which means Britain is expected to earn less in future than previously predicted.
Yesterday, the IMF upgraded UK growth projections by 0.1 percentage points to 1.3% of GDP this year – but also trimmed its forecast by 0.1% next year, also putting it at 1.3%.
The UK growth prospects are 0.4 percentage points worse off than the IMF’s projects last autumn. The 1.3% GDP growth would be the second-fastest in the G7, behind the US.
Last night, the chancellor arrived in Washington for the annual IMF and World Bank conference.
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The big issues facing the UK economy
‘I won’t duck challenges’
In her Sky News interview, Ms Reeves said multiple challenges meant there was a fresh need to balance the books.
“I was really clear during the general election campaign – and we discussed this many times – that I would always make sure the numbers add up,” she said.
“Challenges are being thrown our way – whether that is the geopolitical uncertainties, the conflicts around the world, the increased tariffs and barriers to trade. And now this (OBR) review is looking at how productive our economy has been in the past and then projecting that forward.”
She was clear that relaxing the fiscal rules (the main one being that from 2029-30, the government’s day-to-day spending needs to rely on taxation alone, not borrowing) was not an option, making tax rises all but inevitable.
“I won’t duck those challenges,” she said.
“Of course, we’re looking at tax and spending as well, but the numbers will always add up with me as chancellor because we saw just three years ago what happens when a government, where the Conservatives, lost control of the public finances: inflation and interest rates went through the roof.”
Pic: PA
Blame it on the B word?
Ms Reeves also lay responsibility for the scale of the black hole she’s facing at Brexit, along with austerity and the mini-budget.
This could risk a confrontation with the party’s own voters – one in five (19%) Leave voters backed Labour at the last election, playing a big role in assuring the party’s landslide victory.
The chancellor said: “Austerity, Brexit, and the ongoing impact of Liz Truss’s mini-budget, all of those things have weighed heavily on the UK economy.
“Already, people thought that the UK economy would be 4% smaller because of Brexit.
“Now, of course, we are undoing some of that damage by the deal that we did with the EU earlier this year on food and farming, goods moving between us and the continent, on energy and electricity trading, on an ambitious youth mobility scheme, but there is no doubting that the impact of Brexit is severe and long-lasting.”
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