LIVE as Boris Johnson holds press conference amid booster jab drives as Covid rules tighten in England

Everything Boris Johnson said during the opening of his press conference

Every day our scientists are learning more about this new COVID variant, but there is one thing we already know for sure: Right now, our best defense against Omicron is to vaccinate and promote.

If you are given a boost – your immune response will be stronger.

So yesterday, in addition to giving a second dose to all 12 to 15-year-olds – the independent JCVI recommended that boosters should now be given to everyone over the age of 18, and that we should consider the minimum interval between the second dose and the booster. Halve the difference by six months. for three months.

This means that in England alone more than 14 million adults are now eligible for a booster.

So I am here today with the Secretary of Health and the Chief Executive Officer of NHS England to work out our plan for making that happen.

The target we have set is to provide boosters to all eligible people by the end of January.

And like the first jabs, we’ll be working through age groups going down the age band of five, because it’s important that older and more medically vulnerable people get that extra protection first.

So even if you did your second job three months ago and are eligible now, please don’t try and book until the NHS says it’s your turn.

We have already done about 18 million boosters in the UK, but we have millions more boosters to protect the most vulnerable.

We will then rapidly take the clusters down, and working closely with the evolving administrations, we seek to increase capacity across the United Kingdom to levels achieved in the previous vaccination effort.

We’re going to throw everything at it, just to make sure all eligible people are offered boosters every two months.

Across England, we will have over 1,500 community pharmacy sites to vaccinate people near your place of residence.

All our sites will increase their capacity, and we will establish additional hospital centers on top of the already active hospital centers.

Temporary vaccination centers will open like Christmas trees.

And we will be deploying at least 400 military personnel to aid our NHS efforts, plus, a fantastic jabs army of volunteers.

I know the frustration we all feel with this Omicron version of this is the sense of exhaustion that we might go through all of this all over again.

But our situation today is – and always will be – much better than it was a year ago.

What we’re doing is we’re taking some proportionate, precautionary measure while our scientists crack the Omicron code, and while we get the extra protection of those boosters in the arms of those who need them most. it occurs.

So we’re going to leave behind our NHS men and women who have saved many lives on the front lines, and run our vaccination program without a break for almost a year, and who are going into breach again.

And I want to say on behalf of the entire nation, I want to thank each and every one of them for their extraordinary efforts.

And the best way we can all show our gratitude is to do our bit and move on when it comes time to get that booster.

I was sincerely waiting for my moment to come and it is happening on Thursday, I am happy to say that.

So whenever it’s your turn, grab your booster and ask your friends and family to do the same.

It is time for another great British vaccination effort.

We’ve done it before, we’re going to do it again, and let’s not give the virus a second chance.