BOOSTER jabs for people aged over 50 are set to be at the heart of the Government’s Covid-19 winter plan announced today.

Health Secretary Sajid Javid will set out the plan in the Commons, with guidance to work from home and the mandatory use of face masks likely to be retained as options.

Lockdowns will be a ‘last resort’.

Vaccine minister Nadhim Zahawi told Sky News: “We’re about to embark on a massive booster campaign and of course a flu vaccination programme – I am concerned about flu, we haven’t had much flu circulating anywhere in the world, and in a bad year we could lose up to 25,000 people to flu.

“The direction we’re taking – a massive booster campaign, a varied surveillance system, a really fit for purpose test and trace system – that is where we think we will be able to end up, confident that we have the infrastructure in place to deliver on this.

“But of course, we have to have contingency planning. All the time we have information coming in on how the virus is behaving.

“Winter gives the virus an inbuilt advantage – boosters reduce that advantage by hopefully taking the most vulnerable out of harm’s way.”

It is expected all over-50s will be offered a third booster jab, starting with the over-70s and most vulnerable.

Other measures, such as vaccine passports for people attending nightclubs or other crowded venues, have already been shelved.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson will then lead a Downing Street news conference, despite the recent death of his mother, Charlotte Johnson Wahl.