Despite Omicron being a target of the Government’s ‘turbocharged Covid booster campaign, the program seems to be in limbo. 

Officials promised that they would put the rollout of’steroids” on hold and increase the delivery rate for third Covid jab doses to 500,000 per day. They also said that the scheme would be open to those under 40.

The latest NHS data however shows that the UK is not even close to that goal, and in fact is delivering fewer boosters on certain days than it did a week ago. 

Only 290,165 boosters, which is hardly an improvement on the 285,335 jabs that were given in the previous week, were distributed Sunday.

Jab roll-out was able to reach the Government’s target of half-million people per day on Saturday when the Government administered 464 616 Covid shots. 

This was slightly lower than what had been delivered on Saturday, when 465111 jabs were administered. 

The current pace of 2.75 million jabs per week means that it will be until March before every Briton eligible is offered their third Covid vaccine. That’s well over the target of the Government at end-January.  

Many elderly and vulnerable UK citizens are not able to access a Covid booster despite the promises made. They have reported being unable to get appointments and that staff are too busy  to give them jabs. 

This week, the launch of the booster rollout was delayed due to insufficient acceleration.

According to The Telegraph officials have blamed the lack of acceleration on red-tape due to waiting for legal instructions on the roll-out to be provided by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA).

Officials promised that the Covid booster jab rollout would be put on 'steroids' to help ward off Omicron but the latest vaccine figures show jab numbers are well off the Government's 500,000-a-day target

Officials claimed that Covid booster jabs would be given on steroids to help fight Omicron, however the most recent vaccine numbers show that jabs are far below the Government’s goal of 500,000 per-day.

Boris Johnson announced UK’s Mammoth Covid booster Programme 10 days ago. The programme aims at providing all eligible adults in the UK one more jab by January 31st. 

The prime minister also announced that the wait times between the second and third Covid jabs will be cut in half, from six to three months. This is to allow millions of eligible under-40s to get the vaccine and speed up the rollout.

After negotiating with doctor unions about what services GPs will cease to provide in support of the roll-out, it took until Friday for NHS chiefs to issue their guidance regarding the new jab rollout.

The document revealed, among other things, that under-40s will not be able book vaccines online before 13 December.

At the weekend just more than 20.5million Covid boosters were administered in the UK. This is less than half the 53million that the Government hopes the booster will be available by January.

The Telegraph received information from sources that suggested the NHS delayed opening of its booking systems while it waited for UKHSA to provide legal instruction.

Others disagreed and said such paperwork shouldn’t cause delay. They pointed out that updates to protocols are only for non-medical personnel, while pharmacists, doctors, and nurses can already follow the updated guidance.

Omicron is a disease that can be prevented by the use of booster programmes. However, scientists are still not sure how the Covid variant will spread and whether vaccines could become less effective due to its highly mutated nature. 

The Department of Health has reported that the booster expansion was delayed. Yesterday’s numbers show 51,459 Covid new cases. That is five more than on Monday. It also marks the third week in which figures exceed the 50,000 mark. 

In total, there are 46,000 Covid cases on average each day in the UK and data from the Covid Genomics UK Consortium (COG-UK) suggests the new strain is already behind around one in 66 of them, or 1.4 per cent

There are approximately 46,000 Covid cases per day in Britain. Data from Covid Genomics UK Consortium suggests that the new strain may be behind about one-third of those 66, which is 1.4 percent.

There have been only 336 official Omicron cases confirmed in the UK so far, but there are likely more than a thousand already, according to Professor Paul Hunter, an epidemiologist at the University of East Anglia

Only 336 Omicron cases have been confirmed so far in the UK, however, Professor Paul Hunter of the University of East Anglia, who is an epidemiologist, believes there may be more than 1,000.

Total Covid cases are rising fastest in London and the South East of England with most of the Omicron infections linked to travellers flying back into the UK

London and South East England are experiencing the highest number of Total Covid cases. Most Omicron infections in these areas can be attributed to returning travellers who have flown into the UK.

As experts warn that the Omicron super-mutant variant of Christmas freedoms is rapidly spreading in Britain, there have been fresh doubts.

UK’s mammoth booster drive explained

A coronavirus booster vaccine will be given to all adults over 18 by January 31st

– Jabs will now be available in five year age groups that descend. They start with seniors and the most vulnerable, before going down. 

The NHS will notify people when they can book an appointment to have a jab. They are asking people to wait to be invited. 

The combined number of vaccination sites in Britain will exceed 3,000, almost twice the current figure. 

1.500 Community Pharmacy Sites will offer jabs, and will all be instructed to expand capacity  

To assist NHS volunteers and staff in delivering the jabs, at least 400 military personnel are expected to be deployed  

 GPs and community pharmacists will be incentivised to deliver more jabs, with the payment for standard delivery of a vaccination increased to £15 a shot

– An extra £5 per shot will be offered to GPs and pharmacists if they work on Sundays

– A £30 premium will be offered to GPs and pharmacists for vaccinations delivered to people who are housebound

To free up time for clinicians, the Care Quality Commission will keep a halt on general practice routine inspections.  

In order to make it easier for people to access smaller facilities, the NHS has proposed eliminating the waiting time of 15 minutes after vaccination.   

– The NHS is recruiting for up to 10,000 new paid vaccinator roles as well as for an army of ‘tens of thousands’ of new volunteers to help with the drive

Volunteers who are unpaid will be able to guide others at the vaccination centers. They must do at least 2 shifts per month. 

In the end, 53 million will be eligible. 22m of them are not eligible for a boost and they haven’t had one yet.  

Eminent epidemiologist Professor Tim Spector claimed infections of the highly evolved variant were doubling every two days and that there were up to 2,000 cases already — five times more than the official count. 

King’s College London’s scientist who oversees the largest Omicron-symptom-tracking program in the country, has estimated that Britain will soon have more Omicron patients than any other African nation at the epicenter of this new epidemic.

Dr Jeffrey Barrett, head of Covid surveillance at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, said Omicron was likely to become the UK dominant strain ‘within a matter of weeks’ rather than months like initially hoped.

Scientists predicted just yesterday that it would take until mid-January for Omicron to outpace Delta but Monday saw the biggest single day jump in cases of the mutant virus yet. Omicron has been confirmed to have infected a further 90 people within the last 24 hours. 

Dr. Barrett stated that he believes we can now state that the variant of Delta is spreading more rapidly in the UK than it was at the time. This, I believe, was something that wasn’t clear until recently. It’s likely to overtake Delta (Delta), probably within a few weeks. I’m pretty certain of that. 

Dominic Raab said today that ministers weren’t looking for tougher Christmas curbs. He also claimed they weren’t interested in introducing vaccine passports and working at home. This despite Omicron seeing a sharp increase. According to BBC Radio 4, ‘We don’t believe Plan B is necessary,’ he said on BBC Radio 4’s Today show. ‘Why? It is because of the effectiveness of the vaccine program.

Mr Raab was more definitive than Boris Johnson who yesterday refused to rule out tightening restrictions over the festive period, merely insisting that Christmas will be ‘better’ than last year.

Scientists anticipate booster jabs providing high protection against Omicron disease and death. 

Omicron, even though it’s milder than Delta reports from South Africa, could cause a tsunami of hospital admissions. 

This virus is capable of infecting former Covid patients quickly and experts from the UK Government expect that it will render existing vaccines less effective by making them 40 percent more difficult to stop infection.

Omicron may infect more people than expected, experts warn. 

Asked whether Omicron could infect more people but make fewer people sick, Professor Spector told BBC Breakfast: ‘If early reports pan out – we don’t absolutely know this, we’ve got hardly any data in this country where we have high rates of vaccination – but if we assume that it is not more severe and possibly milder than Delta, but it’s much more transmissible…

This is the image that has sparked fear among scientists, prompted ministers to turbocharge the UK's booster vaccine rollout and seen the return of mask mandates in England. It details the new super-mutant Omicron variant's 32 spike protein mutations which experts fear will make it the most infectious and vaccine-resistant strain yet. The graphic, released by the country's top variant monitoring team, also lays bare how it is far more evolved than even the world-dominant Delta strain, with nearly five times as many alterations on the spike

Scientists are afraid of this image, which prompted UK ministers to boost the UK’s vaccine rollout. It also saw the return of English mask mandates. Experts fear that the Omicron variant will be the most deadly and vaccine-resistant super-mutant yet. It contains 32 spike protein mutations. A graphic released by the top national variant monitoring group shows that the Omicron strain has nearly five-fold more modifications on its spike protein than the Delta strain. 

It means people who get the vaccine in large numbers will likely pass it on twice as fast than those who have it individually. This is good news for each individual, as we see fewer cases of the disease going to hospitals. Partly this can be attributed to our high vaccine rates.

“But, it also means you’ll eventually get more deaths or problems because almost everyone has been infected.

“And this is what it means for the whole country, but for each individual, it can be worse news, but for them all, it’s better. There is absolutely no excuse for complacency.

Since Omicron alerted the rest of the world on November 24, there has been an explosive rise in South African Covid infection rates.

The number of Covid cases increased 1800% in the week to 6,381 in just 24 hours. Although this was lower than yesterday’s 11,000 cases, tens to thousands fewer tests were performed.  

Professor Spector of the Covid ZOEsymptom study stated that the UK may have Omicron in less than 10 days. This is contrary to the belief held by some other countries.

What will happen to a typical Christmas? 

Britain’s Covid crisis grew today, as super-mutant Omicron strain spread. Scientists warned that this could cause a surge in hospital admissions.

The Department of Health recorded 51,459 new cases in the last 24 hours which was a fifth more than last Monday and the third time in a week that they have breached the 50,000 mark. A further 41 deaths were recorded, a 17% increase over a week earlier. 

The country received another 299.565 booster jabs on Sunday. This is significantly less than the target No10 set for 500,000 per-day last week to defend against the Omicron waves.

Today, there were 90 additional confirmed cases in England and Scotland of this variant. This brings the total UK to 336, and is increasing by nearly a third per day. 

However, experts are concerned that there will not be enough cases to prove the strain is highly infectious. Not all positive samples have been sequenced. Sajid Javid, the Health Secretary of England, confirmed today that Omicron has been transmitted in multiple areas of England.

Paul Hunter, an infectious diseases expert from the University of East Anglia said that it would be the dominant variant within the next few weeks or months. This is based on the rapid pace at which it has outpaced Delta in South African epicentre. 

He stated that while the timeline doesn’t suggest there will be any additional curbs on Christmas, it does leave room for some restrictions in the New Year. 

But Boris Johnson today refused to rule out tougher Covid curbs over the festive period, merely insisting that Christmas will be ‘better’ than last year. In two weeks, he will review current Covid measures. On a visit to Merseyside, Mr Johnson stated that he was still waiting for information about how hazardous it was and what effect it had on deaths and hospitalisations.