‘Darker skies and colder weather provide perfect conditions... for Covid-19 to thrive’

These were the words of the health secretary last week, as it became clear that vaccination alone will not keep the virus in check. But experts in health and education fear that Plan B will come too late

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Joe Buglass tried 46 times to call his GP about booking a Covid booster jab last Wednesday. The phone was just ringing and ringing," he said. He had tried several times over the previous six weeks, since getting an NHS text message.

You click the link and it gives you the doctors' surgery number," he said. Buglass, who runs a property maintenance business in Newcastle, is clinically vulnerable because he donated a kidney. When he finally got through, he was told he was ringing the wrong people. Eventually, someone rang him back.