Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation has made of the implications for prioritisation in the next phase of the covid-19 vaccination programme of the 2020 findings of King’s College London that people with asthma may be at increased risk of hospitalisation and of developing long covid.

Adults with asthma which requires continuous or repeated use of systemic steroids or with previous exacerbations requiring hospital admission, will be vaccinated in phase one, priority group six which includes all individuals aged 16 to 64 years old with underlying health conditions which put them at higher risk of serious disease and mortality. Individuals with more severe asthma may have been included in the clinically extremely vulnerable group, in which case they will be vaccinated in priority group four in phase one. All other adults aged 50 years old or above with asthma are being vaccinated within the phase one priority group associated with their age.