The British government should end mass vaccination against COVID-19 after the booster dose campaign, a vaccine expert in the United Kingdom has said.

Dr Clive Dix, former chairman of the UK’s vaccine task force, said that COVID should be treated as an endemic virus similar to flu. He called for a revised targeted strategy to manage the disease and advised ministers to do away with population-based vaccine doses, Hindustan Times reported, citing British media. 

“We need to analyse whether we use the current booster campaign to ensure the vulnerable are protected if this is seen to be necessary,” he said, adding, “Mass population-based vaccination in the UK should now end,” according to a report in The Observer.

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Dr Dix also said that ministers should encourage and back research into immunity beyond antibodies, in an effort to create vaccines for the vulnerable. “We now need to manage the disease, not virus spread. So stopping progression to severe disease in vulnerable groups is the future objective,” The Guardian quoted him as saying.

While the daily cases witnessed a fall of almost 19%, the death toll continued to increase with 313 more fatalities recorded, taking the total tally to over 150,000 in Britain. 

“Coronavirus has taken a terrible toll on our country and today the number of deaths recorded has reached 150,000,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson wrote on Twitter.

“Each and every one of those is a profound loss to the families, friends and communities affected and my thoughts and condolences are with them. Our way out of this pandemic is for everyone to get their booster or their first or second dose if they haven’t yet,” he added.

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The number of people in the country hospitalised with COVID-19 rose to 18,454 on Thursday this week, more than double the figure two weeks earlier.

The United Kingdom is racing to offer booster shots to adults across the country after research showed that two doses were not enough to protect people from omicron.

Earlier, British health officials had said that the current booster doses of COVID-19 continue to “provide high levels of protection against severe disease”, adding that a second booster is not being considered at the moment, reported AP.

Wei Shen Lim, a member of the British government’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation had said in a statement earlier this week, “The current data show the booster dose is continuing to provide high levels of protection against severe disease, even for the most vulnerable older age groups”, according to reports from Reuters.