Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of reducing the period between first and second doses of the covid-19 vaccine from 8 weeks to 4 weeks.

Currently, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) recommends an interval of eight weeks between doses of all the available COVID-19 vaccines. On 14 May, in response to the increasing rates of infection of the Delta variant, the Government amended the interval of second doses for the most vulnerable cohorts who were offered a vaccine in phase one of the programme, from 12 weeks to eight weeks. The eight week interval was applied to all eligible cohorts from 6 July.

Current evidence shows that a longer dose interval produces a better immune response and as such, the JCVI has advised against reducing the dose interval further in order to maximise the effectiveness of the vaccination programme.