Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the public health implications of removing from priority in phase two of the vaccine roll-out those people who take steroid inhalers to manage asthma symptoms.

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation concluded that only a subset of those with asthma are at clinically higher risk from COVID-19. This group is defined as adults with asthma who require continuous or repeated use of systemic steroids or with previous exacerbations requiring hospital admission and will be vaccinated in priority group six. An individual with a more severe case of asthma may have been included in the clinically extremely vulnerable group, in which case they will be vaccinated in priority group four.