Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will publish the scientific basis for including people with severe asthma in the group 6 priority group of the covid-19 vaccine rollout programme.

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation has concluded that only a subset of those with asthma are at clinically high risk from COVID-19. This group are 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 as part of priority group six. An individual with a more severe case of asthma may have been included in the clinically extremely vulnerable group and would have received a letter from the National Health Service or their general practitioner, in which case they will be vaccinated as part of priority group four.