Stay Awesome
COVID-19
Find most of the information you need in these resources
Always refer to your local signed PGD's in practice, and remember the Green Book takes priority over the SPmC - and sometimes WHO takes priority over the Green Book! They don't always say the same!
Other useful links and further reading:
COVID-19 vaccination: Information for healthcare practitioners
COVID-19 Vaccination Programme EVERYTHING you need to know!
NHS Wales – COVID-19 Vaccine Information (Operational and patient info)
Public Health Scotland – COVID-19 Resources (Sector specific guidance)
COVID vaccination stickers
COVID vaccine tracker and landscape (WHO)
COVID booster programme Spring 2024
Real time data on current cases around the world (Our World in Data)
Check out this intriguing headline: Administering the BCG vaccine during the active phase of COVID-19 may help protect against the development of long COVID.
Recent Updates & News
19th March 2025: COVID-19 vaccination: spring 2025 campaign resources updated. Also updated is the document; COVID-19 vaccination: information for healthcare practitioners. PLUS the Green Book chapter. Lots of COVID-19 reading to do!! People aged 75 years and older, residents in care homes for older people, and those aged 6 months and over with a weakened immune system will be offered a dose of COVID-19 vaccine in spring 2025.
7th March 2025: National Protocol for the administration of COVID-19 mRNA vaccine to individuals aged 5 years and over is here!!
6th March 2025: Policy paper published: Departmental minute from the Department of Health and Social Care: notification of contingent liability - COVID-19 spring 2025 vaccination programme. The summary- Vaccination will be offered in England in spring 2025 to adults aged 75 years and over, residents in a care home for older adults, and individuals aged 6 months and over who are immunosuppressed, as defined in tables 3 and 4 of the COVID-19 chapter of the GB. The vaccines that will be supplied for the spring 2025 programme are the Moderna mRNA (Spikevax) vaccine and the Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA (Comirnaty) vaccine.
6th Feb 2025: Updated resources: Safety of COVID-19 vaccines when given in pregnancy - Guidance for health professionals to share with pregnant women immunised with COVID-19 vaccines.
5th Feb 2025: Nasal COVID-19 vaccine to enter US clinical trials. The new trial will evaluate the safety and efficacy of the vaccine administered via two routes: inhaled into the lungs and sprayed into the nose. I absolutely love seeing developments in vaccine administration technology.
14th Nov: One to watch. Check out the Spring COVID-19 vaccine programme advice. Using the bespoke, non-standard cost-effectiveness assessment developed by DHSC, JCVI advises that the following groups should be offered COVID-19 vaccination in spring 2025: adults aged 75 years and over, residents in a care home for older adults, and individuals aged 6 months and over who are immunosuppressed. Autumn 2025 and spring 2026 look set to be similar. If you are interested in the financial side of things as well, it's a useful read for the details and the rationales.
8th October 2024: Vaccine update landed! In there it highlighted that last year’s data shows that those who received a COVID-19 vaccine were around 45% less likely to be admitted to hospital with COVID-19, compared to those who did not receive one. But protection wanes 3 to 6 months following vaccination. That is why for those who are most vulnerable, we must keep going with those booster doses for the most vulnerable groups.
3rd October 2024: the COVID-19 Autumn booster guidance was updated. And in alignment with this the COVID-19 vaccinator competency assessment tool and training recommendation documents were also updated.
18th September 2024: The latest over 5's COVID-19 national protocol has arrived!
17th September 2024: The very handy 'which COVID vaccine' poster has been updated. If I have given you this on a course you have done recently - please make sure you have the latest one!!!
16th September the Green Book chapter on COVID-19 has been updated to include the Autumn vaccine booster prog details.
2nd August 2024: Government thoughts on the eligibility on the national programme for Autumn landed. See "Government accepts advice on 2024 autumn COVID-19 vaccine programme". Shortly after this the Autumn programme advice was published.
8th April 2024: JCVI advice on Autumn booster programme landed
APRIL 2024 Useful poster
APRIL 2023 Schedules to the Standard Contract for use by commissioners for non Primary-Care providers delivering COVID-19 vaccination services from April 2023
Bits and bobs to casually drop into conversation
Did you know....
About 40% of people with COVID-19 have moderate symptoms and non-severe pneumonia, 15% have significant disease including severe pneumonia, and 5% experience critical disease with life-threatening complications.
So far, no-one has been able to identify the animal which led to human infection with the 2019 coronavirus -but there are reports that SARS-CoV-2 is most similar to that of bat coronaviruses.
The European Centre for Disease Control estimates that 1 in 1000 people die prematurely when infected with influenza. For COVID-19 the current estimates suggest that 10 in 1000 infected people will die from the disease in high-income countries. Handy statistic to know for those who say "I'll have my Flu jab but not that COVID-19 one".
