Booster jabs a must, says Boris Johnson, as Europe battens down

Boris Johnson warns that only three doses of the Covid vaccine would count as ‘fully vaccinated’ as he points to surging infections in Europe.

Austrian police check vaccination passes in Innsbruck during the first day of a nationwide lockdown for the unvaccinated. Picture: Getty Images

People in Britain must get booster jabs or risk the return of restrictions seen across Europe, as Boris Johnson says travellers will ­require a third dose to avoid quarantine.

The British Prime Minister warned on Monday that “storm clouds are gathering” across ­Europe, with infections surging in countries such as Germany, The Netherlands and Austria as he urged middle-aged people to have boosters.

Only three doses would count as “fully vaccinated”, he said, promising that the national Covid pass would soon show booster jabs to allow people to travel more freely.

Although three-quarters of ­eligible over-70s have had a booster, this falls to just over half of those in their 50s.

“Please, please go and get vaccinated to protect yourself and others”, Mr Johnson said.

The Netherlands and Belgium are reintroducing restrictions and Austria has imposed a lockdown for the unvaccinated after rates rose fourfold or fivefold in the past month.

Citing these curbs, Mr Johnson said “those countries with lower vaccination rates have tended to see bigger surges in infection, and in turn been forced to respond with harsher measures”.

“If you want to control the epidemic here in the UK, and if we want to avoid new restrictions on our daily lives, you must all get the vaccine as soon as we are eligible,” he said.

Insisting that getting a booster was “the most important thing people can do to prevent further” restrictions, Mr Johnson reiterated that “we don’t see anything in the current data that leads us to think that we need to go to plan B, which is as you know, several steps short of a lockdown”. Plan B would involve compulsory masks, vaccine passports and the return of work-from-home guidance.

England’s chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, said infection numbers had been “broadly flat” for weeks, urging people not to “over-interpret slight downturns and slight upturns” in daily numbers.

“They’re not currently going up in the kind of numbers you’re seeing in continental Europe,” Professor Whitty said. But he urged people to have a booster.

Western Europe is again at the heart of the global epidemic and governments are being forced to take action, with The Netherlands already announcing the region’s first partial lockdown of the winter.

Austria has inoculated about 65 per cent of its population, below the EU average of 67 per cent.

Latvia, which is also lagging ­behind on jabs, similarly brought in tougher curbs for unvaccinated people on Monday that will mean companies can dismiss employees who refuse the vaccine.

France has reintroduced mandatory mask-wearing and toughened entry requirements from a raft of countries.

The Times, AFP