UK starts rolling out coronavirus jabs for 12 to 15-year-olds

(Alliance News) - Coronavirus vaccines are being rolled out to children aged between 12 and 15, ...

Alliance News 20 September, 2021 | 5:33AM
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(Alliance News) - Coronavirus vaccines are being rolled out to children aged between 12 and 15, with three million youngsters eligible across the UK.

The programme is expected to be delivered primarily within schools, and guidance has been issued to headteachers to contact police if they believe protests could be held outside their buildings.

Children will be offered jabs at some schools in England from Monday.

The rollout for 12 to 15-year-olds is also beginning in Scotland and Wales this week.

Young people in this age bracket in Scotland can go to drop-in clinics or wait for a letter offering them a scheduled appointment.

Jabs for children in Wales will be carried out at mass vaccination centres and some school settings.

In Northern Ireland, the head of the region's vaccination programme said jabs are likely to be offered to children aged 12 to 15 in schools from October.

Adam Finn, a professor of paediatrics and member of the Joint Committee on Vaccination & Immunisation, said the decision on whether to jab 12 to 15-year-olds is not black and white, adding that while it is not "essential" for them to have a coronavirus vaccine, it is also "perfectly sensible" for them to do so.

The JCVI decided not to recommend mass vaccination of 12 to 15-year-olds on health grounds alone, but they suggested that wider issues, such as disruption to education, should be taken into consideration and examined by the UK's four chief medical officers.

Those health chiefs subsequently said a single dose of the Pfizer Inc jab for people in this age group will significantly reduce the chance of a young person getting Covid and passing the virus on.

Finn, speaking at the weekend on BBC Breakfast, said the reason the process for deciding whether to vaccinate children of this age has been "convoluted and complex" is because there "isn't a completely clear, straightforward answer".

But he added that people should not become too "agonised" about it because the risks on either side "are not that high", explaining that children of this age are not at great risk from Covid, nor at great risk from the vaccine.

Parental consent will not be needed if a child is considered competent to make a decision by themselves, but England's chief medical officer Chris Whitty has said for the "great majority of cases, children and their parents come to the same decision".

It comes as booster jab invites are being sent out to 1.5 million people in England this week in what UK Health Secretary Sajid Javid said was an effort to "strengthen the wall of defence" against coronavirus created by the vaccines.

By Aine Fox, PA

source: PA

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