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The government has launched a new 'Better Health' campaign to help people working towards healthier weight and reduce the risk of being hospitalised with Covid-19. The campaign launched in partnership with 15 weight management and physical activity partners will provide both free and discounted offers for weight management. Public health minister Maggie Throup said the campaign will focus on improving adults' health and help them to achieve a healthier weight. It will also include focus on the risk of serious diseases such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease and up to 12 types of cancer, to reducing the probability of hospitalisation with Covid-19. Besides highlighting these health conditions, the campaign will emphasise how these could be prevented by losing excess weight.

Britain's Covid booster campaign is set to kick off this September, after the country became the first in the world to approve an Omicron-adapted shot. Around 26 million people in Britain are estimated to be eligible for an autumn Covid-19 booster, having had at least two Covid vaccine doses already, a UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) spokesperson said. The preference is to deploy what is known as a "bivalent vaccine" that targets both the original virus and the Omicron variant through the autumn campaign, but that will depend on the health regulator (MHRA) approving such shots and the state of vaccine supplies. The UK's Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) has advised boosters should be given to over-50s, individuals in clinical risk groups, frontline workers and care-home staff ahead of the winter, when respiratory viruses are typically at their peak. On Monday (August 15), the MHRA gave Moderna's bivalent shot conditional approval. The endorsement of the vaccine is based on data that showed it produced a marginally better immune response against some Omicron variants, versus the original novel coronavirus - although whether that translates into stronger protection against serious disease is unclear.