DAN Osborne has backed a dangerous Covid conspiracy that says a third vaccine jab will spark a "zombie apocalypse".
The ex Towie star shared a video posted by an anti-vaxxer Instagram account that first spouted the wild claim on Monday.
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In the video, Health Secretary Matt Hancock answered questions on ITV show This Morning about rolling out a third vaccine jab to protect against two new Covid variants emerging in South Africa and Brazil.
In the clip, host Phillip Schofield asked the 42-year-old politician: "A vast proportion of the country have had their first vaccine, you're cracking on with the second vaccine, why can't people go on holiday?"
And he replied: "There's a new variant that the vaccine doesn't work against. We know the vaccine works against the variant in this country … we're also working on a new vaccine that we might have to roll out in the Autumn to give people a third dose that will deal with this problem.
"So we're working on that now."
He added: "The two that we are most worried about started in South Africa and Brazil and they've spread a bit around the world.
"We're doing the science and we're watching very closely, if that all goes well we'll be more relaxed about travel."
The original video was posted with the caption: "This is just something else. 3rd vaccine jab on it's way??? Wow!! Welcome to the Zombie apocalypse..!!! It's like a Hollywood blockbuster!!!"
And reality star Dan shared the clip to his 1.1million followers, writing: "Have you ever heard so much bulls**t in your life?
"How they're getting away with this I have no idea".
What are vaccine makers doing to tackle new variants?
Astrazeneca has said it aims to produce a “next generation” Covid vaccine especially suited to new mutations as soon as the autumn.
Mene Pangalos, a senior research chief at the British-Swedish firm, said Astrazeneca will start developing a new vaccine for the mutated strains and will look to make them public “as rapidly as possible”.
The AstraZeneca vaccine, developed by scientists at the University of Oxford, works against variants circulating in the UK now.
Pfizer is discussing a clinical trial for “a variant-specific vaccine” that’s a reconstructed version of its original vaccine, according to a press release in February.
This would be against the South African variant.
The company is also testing a "booster" shot of its vaccine on people who were fully vaccinated in trials to understand the safety of an extra dose and "immunity against circulating strains".
Moderna was the first to produce a vaccine to target the South African variant in mid-February, which is to be trialled in the US.
The new vaccines being trialled could be eventually used as jabs on their own or act as booster shots.
More than three million Brits have already received a second dose of a coronavirus vaccine.
And Government data up to March 26 shows a total of 33,020,952 Covid vaccines have now been given in the UK so far.
Ministers had promised bumper supply from mid-March would see record daily jabs in arms.
The jabs currently being rolled out from Pfizer and Oxford/AstraZeneca – and already given to more than 30million Brits – were designed to tackle the original coronavirus strain.
But while the vaccines do work against new variants, studies have shown they are less effective.
Specifically the variants that evolved in South Africa and Brazil have mutations that allow them to dodge some immunity built from vaccine or prior infection.
More variants are expected to evolve in the future, prompting scientists to start work on tweaking the current jabs to ensure they can tackle future strains.
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