Advice on priority groups for COVID-19 vaccination

This advice is provided to facilitate the development of policy on COVID19 vaccination in the UK.

JCVI advises that the first priorities for the current COVID-19 vaccination programme should be the prevention of COVID-19 mortality and the protection of health and social care staff and systems. Secondary priorities could include vaccination of those at increased risk of hospitalisation and at increased risk of exposure, and to maintain resilience in essential public services. This document sets out a framework for refining future advice on a national COVID-19 vaccination strategy.

This advice has been developed based on a review of UK epidemiological data on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic so far (1), data on demographic and clinical risk factors for mortality and hospitalisation from COVID-19 (2-3), data on occupational exposure(4-7), a review on inequalities associated with COVID-19 (8), Phase I, II and III data on the Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccine and the AstraZeneca vaccine, Phase I and II data on other developmental COVID-19 vaccines (9-20), and mathematical modelling on the potential impact of different vaccination programmes (21).