US set to allow different Covid booster shots than the one initially taken; New Zealand experts sound warning over health system
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Last week, testing at a private Covid lab in Wolverhampton was halted, after the UK Health Security Agency found tens of thousands of people may have been falsely given a negative PCR result. But since the start of September, scientists had been alerted to strange patterns in the testing data which suggested something was out of the ordinary. In this week’s edition of our Science Weekly podcast, Anand Jagatia speaks to Dr Kit Yates, a mathematical biologist, about why it took so long for these errors to be traced back to the lab, and what the consequences could be.
You can listen to it here: Covid-19 – how 43,000 false negative tests were uncovered as wrong – podcast
So we’ve seen I think over 3m take-up for this jab already, and children, of course, through schools are getting theirs. There’s more announcements this week to help boost that process. But I think really importantly the booster jab for Covid is one that we are encouraging people to take. I just had actually a text yesterday from my doctor encouraging me to go and have mine. Six months after your second jab, that you will have had earlier in the year, you have the opportunity to come forward, and of course a flu jab as well. So we’re encouraging all those who are vulnerable, anyone like me who’s over 50, please do make sure that you get your booster jab to help make sure that we are able to continue living in the new normal we are able to do as a result of incredible vaccine programme that we’ve rolled out.