Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made an assessment of when people with asthma should be prioritised to receive a covid-19 vaccination; and whether he has directed the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation to make an assessment of when people with asthma should be prioritised for that vaccine.

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) is the independent body of scientific and clinical experts who advise the Government on which vaccines the United Kingdom should use and provide advice on prioritisation at a population level. The JCVI 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, in which case they will be vaccinated as part of priority group four. Those in priority group four should already have been offered the vaccine.