This is how many coronavirus booster jabs are set to be offered in Sheffield

The jabs will be given to the city’s 194,601 over 50s, as well as those in care homes, and frontline health and social care workers from next week.

Over 50s make up roughly one third of the city’s population.

The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine will be used as the booster dose, with experts saying it is safe to be given alongside the usual winter flu jab.

People will be able to get their Covid and flu vaccines on the same day, preferably with one shot in each arm.

Health Secretary Sajid Javid told the Commons that the NHS would contact all those who are eligible and was preparing to offer the jabs from next week.

All those who are clinically extremely vulnerable and anyone aged 16 to 65 in an at-risk group for Covid (who were included in priority groups one to nine during the initial vaccine rollout) will also be eligible for a jab.

Three vaccines have been approved as safe and effective as boosters - AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Moderna - but experts have decided to opt for Pfizer as a preference after studies showed it is well tolerated and works well as a booster.

It can be given to people who had two doses of AstraZeneca previously.

Moderna may be used as an alternative, but as a half-dose booster shot after studies showed it was effective, with few side-effects.

People should receive their third booster dose at least six months after they received their second dose of a Covid vaccine.

When there is more data, experts from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), who prepared the advice to ministers, plan to look at whether boosters should also be offered to healthy people under the age of 50.

Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, deputy chief medical officer for England, told a Downing Street briefing: "We know that this pandemic is still active, we are not past the pandemic, we are in an active phase still.”

Prof Van-Tam said that if he was offered the flu jab and a Covid-19 booster at the same time, he would take it.

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