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UK Covid live news: Johnson to announce ‘last piece of jigsaw’ vaccine booster rollout as part of winter plan


Good morning. As my colleagues Aubrey Allegretti and Peter Walker reports, later today Boris Johnson will confirm the start of a booster jabs programme for the over-50s, as part of an announcement about the government’s winter plan for Covid.

In an interview this morning Nadhim Zahawi, the vaccine deployment minister, said the booster programme would be the “final piece of the jigsaw” as the UK transitions away from dealing with coronavirus as a pandemic. He said:


This is probably the last piece of the jigsaw to allow us to transition this virus from pandemic to endemic and I hope by next year we will be in a position to deal with this virus with an annual inoculation programme as we do flu.

I will post more from his interviews soon.

Here is the agenda for the day.

8.30am: Boris Johnson chairs cabinet.

10am: Sir Keir Starmer gives a speech to the TUC conference.

11.30am: The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation hold a press conference.

12pm: Liz Truss, the international trade secretary, gives a speech.

After 1pm: MPs begin debating the health and social care levy bill, which is due to pass all its Commons stages in one day. The second reading vote will take place three hours after the debate starts, and votes on committee stage amendments will take place another three hours later.

After 2pm: Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, gives a statement in the Scottish parliament on Covid.

4pm: Boris Johnson holds a press conference to give details of the government’s winter plan for Covid.

At some point today there will also be a statement in the Commons on the Covid winter plan, but the timing of that has not been announced yet.

For further Covid coverage, do read our global live blog.

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