Most people in England, about 30 million, are to be offered a free flu vaccine this year, the government says.
It is to prepare for a winter that could see the annual flu season coincide with a surge in coronavirus.
The NHS flu programme will add all over-50s, people shielding and those who live with them and children in their first year of secondary school.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he wanted “everyone to have a flu jab in the run up to this winter”.
He said it was important to “protect the NHS in the winter months because we’ve still got Covid and the threat of a second spike of Covid, and its vital therefore to keep that pressure off the NHS by everybody getting a flu jab.”