Covid-19 rates are falling in the over 60s age bracket, a high risk group, as the uptake of the booster jab continues to increase.

Greg Fell, Director of Public Health Sheffield reported that Sheffield has a booster coverage of more than 65% among the over 60s, and more than 40% in the over 40s category, who have just been offered a booster dose.

In a Healthier Communities and Adult Social Care Scrutiny and Policy Development Committee meeting, Mr Fell said: “There is waning immunity hence the need for a booster programme. This is having the desired impact in terms of rates of hospitalisation, there’s no two ways about that, this can be seen nationally and certainly can be seen locally too.”

He also states that the clinically vulnerable, immune compromised and unvaccinated people take up most of the hospital beds in regular and intensive care units.

Mr Fell also said that we are seeing one covid-related death a day, rather than 20 to 30 which would have been seen if we had an unvaccinated population.

Ruth, a 70-year-old woman who has taken the booster vaccination said: “It was fine, absolutely no issues with it at all. I think everyone who is entitled to a booster should have it, especially as we have this new variant in Africa that we’ve heard about over the last couple of days, everyone should take their booster if they’re entitled to it, certainly.”

However, not everyone feels the same way. Mohammed, a 55-year-old man said: “I’m a bit surprised about [the booster jab] because we got told that two would be enough and now they’re coming out with a booster so I’m not happy about it, but I’ll have to have it just to go on holiday. If I wasn’t going on holiday then I wouldn’t have got it. It just goes on and on and on.”

The NHS website says that you can get a booster dose from a walk-in site if it has been 6 months since your second dose and you are aged 40 years old or over, or aged 16 years old or over with a health condition that puts you at high risk from COVID-19.