What was claimed
Pictures show Boris Johnson has received a Covid-19 vaccine three times.
Our verdict
This is not true. One of the pictures shows the Prime Minister receiving an annual flu vaccine.
Boris Johnson hasn’t had three Covid-19 vaccines
22 July 2021
A number of posts on social media claim that pictures show Boris Johnson receiving three doses of the Covid-19 vaccines.
Two of the pictures do show the Prime Minister receiving a Covid-19 vaccine—his first dose in March 2021 and his second in June.
But the third picture shows him receiving a different vaccine, the annual flu jab, in October 2019.
A clue that this third photograph was taken before vaccine roll out began in December is the fact that, unlike in the other two pictures, Mr Johnson is not wearing a face mask.
This photograph was also taken in Downing Street, rather than in a medical setting like the other two pictures.
The NHS has been given the go-ahead to start a programme of booster Covid-19 vaccines before winter, but the rollout is not expected to start until the autumn. This will mean that all adults aged 50 or over— which will include Mr Johnson—as well as anyone over 16 who qualifies for a flu jab will be offered a third vaccination.
Only two doses are being given at present.
Update 6 December 2021
This article was archived as, although it was correct at the time of publication, it was written before the introduction of booster Covid-19 vaccines.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because the three pictures do not all show Boris Johnson getting Covid-19 vaccines.