IT is believed that it will be recommended people be prioritised by age and race as opposed to by their job in the final phase of the Covid-19 vaccine roll out.

It has been reported the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation is expected to recommend the age-based approach currently in place to continue once the top nine priority groups have been completed.

Prioritising people by job would be “too complicated” and “risk slowing the rollout down”, it was reported in a national newspaper.

There have been calls for various different occupations to be moved to the top of the priority list, including teachers, police officers, shop workers and even Premier League footballers.

It is thought the JCVI will recommend ministers consider the disproportionate effect Covid-19 on ethnic minority communities when deciding on how the third phase of vaccination will unfold.

South Asian communities have been particularly hard-hit by Covid-19, and it is believed an approach prioritising ethnic groups in an age-based structure is being discussed by the JCVI.

The Prime Minister Boris Johnson has set a target for vaccine priority groups five to nine to be completed by the end of April, meaning 21 million people would have received at least one dose.

It was reported a source on the JCVI said the “simplicity of the prioritisation rules based largely on age” was one of the “main factors behind rollout success”, and that making things more complicated would “risk slowing things down”.

Prioritising one occupation over another would “become political” and sticking with an age-based approach would avoid arguments and tackle risk better, a JCVI source added.

The Government has said the vaccine programme should "promote transparency and fairness" and "mitigate health inequalities".

After age and underlying health conditions, ethnicity is one of the biggest factors in Covid-19 mortality, particularly in South Asian backgrounds, which is why the JCVI wants to target this group.

There has been hesitancy over getting the vaccine in ethnic minority communities, amid a raft of false information circulating through communities about the vaccine’s ingredients and effects.

Sir Simon Stevens, chief executive of the NHS, said there is a “huge effort” to build community engagement in BAME communities to increase vaccine uptake.