By the autumn, all UK adults who want to be vaccinated will have had their two doses. But this won’t be the end of Britain’s vaccinations – it’s very likely a booster programme will then begin.

We can make good predictions on how this programme will run, based on what we know so far about COVID and vaccines, says Andrew Lee. The elderly and clinically vulnerable will most likely be targeted, with the plan probably being to give people boosters before the risk of COVID rises in the winter. They could end up being the first of many boosters given annually against COVID.

The once-popular idea that health is “global”, and that countries should work together to solve health issues for the greater good, has been tarnished by the pandemic. COVID-19 has shown that in an emergency, this isn’t how countries choose to operate.

And new research has revealed that animals mate with their relatives surprisingly often, challenging 40 years of scholarship on the subject. It might even carry benefits.

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Rob Reddick

Commissioning Editor, COVID-19

Melinda Nagy/Shutterstock

UK vaccine booster Q&A: what will be given and when, explained by public health expert

Andrew Lee, University of Sheffield

A public health expert outlines what Britons can expect from their upcoming booster programme.

Shahzaib Akber/EPA

COVID-19 could be the end of ‘global health’ as we know it

Colin McInnes, Aberystwyth University

If there ever was a global health system, then it has gone sadly missing when we needed it most.

Kletr/Shutterstock

Incest isn’t a taboo in the animal kingdom – new study

Raïssa de Boer, Lund University; Regina Vega Trejo, Stockholm University

Reviewing studies of 88 species, researchers found little evidence that animals avoid inbreeding.

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