Outsourcing covid-19 vaccination to the private sector will increase health inequalities

It is challenging, confusing, and divisive to even try to describe the current state of play as we enter another autumn of living with covid-19. Reliable, national level disease data are harder to collect, and this data vacuum has left an information gap. Where do we actually stand as we enter the autumn and the forthcoming return to school? There is an uptick of cases of covid-19 in the UK as assessed by hospital admissions (up by 20% in the week before last) or the ZOE app.1 We are technically in another covid-19 wave, although starting from a low baseline and the uptick in cases and hospital admissions is nowhere near as large as previous years.1 Many millions of people around the world are infected with covid-19 at any given time, some chronically so. New mutations continually arise. Some of these become the next emerging variants of concern and some are more transmissible and/or more immune evasive than the wave they displace. In England, it has just been announced that the covid booster campaign will start earlier than planned following the emergence of a new variant, BA.2.86.2 In various parts of the world variants of concern compete for dominance. In the UK, this comprises a period dominated by XBB.1.16 and the possible emergence of EG.5.1 (Eris) and now, BA.2.86.2 Cases of long covid remain massively high, with around 700 000 of the current UK caseload incurred during the “mild Omicron” triple-boosted …