Coronavirus: Vaccination

(asked on 5th March 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what evidence on transmission the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation assessed when deciding whether to prioritise household members of immunocompromised clinically extremely vulnerable people in phase two of the covid-19 vaccine programme.


Answered by
Nadhim Zahawi Portrait
Nadhim Zahawi
This question was answered on 12th March 2021

On 30 December 2020, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) published its advice on phase one of the COVID-19 vaccination programme. In this advice it stated that consideration had been given to vaccination of household contacts of immunosuppressed individuals. However, at that time there was no data on the size of the effect of COVID-19 vaccines on transmission.

The JCVI is keeping its advice under review, including with regard to emerging evidence on the impact of vaccination on asymptomatic infection and whether this may indicate an impact on transmission. This was last considered at the JCVI’s COVID-19 sub-committee on 4 March 2020 and a position is being agreed with the JCVI’s main committee members.

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