Children could be vaccinated, says expert

CHILDREN could be vaccinated against Covid-19 as a way of preventing disruption to their education, a member of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) has said.

Professor Adam Finn, from the University of Bristol, said vaccinating youngsters may help “keep things functioning normally across society”, as coronavirus continues to circulate even when all adults have been offered a vaccine.

Senior scientists expect the UK to be hit by another wave of coronavirus at some point, mainly among the unvaccinated, but including those for whom the vaccines do not work perfectly.

Speaking in a personal capacity, Prof Finn told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the issue of whether to vaccinate children at all, given they do not get seriously ill with coronavirus, was “a really important question”.

Prof Finn said decisions on vaccinating children “will come later in the summer”.

He added: “We desperately want to keep schools open into the next academic year and avoid any further disruption to education.

“I think this would benefit children if it turns out to be necessary but, clearly, we don’t want to do this unless it is necessary, because it would be an additional difficulty, costs and so on.”

The University of Oxford is currently carrying out a clinical trial on children to test the safety and efficacy of its vaccine in younger age groups.

It comes after Pfizer said on Wednesday that trials of its Covid vaccine in children aged 12 to 15 showed 100% efficacy and a strong immune response.

Meanwhile, almost one in seven people who test positive for Covid-19 are still suffering symptoms three months later, new figures suggest.

The largest study of its kind on long Covid from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) found people with coronavirus are significantly more likely than the general population to report ongoing issues, which can include muscle pain and fatigue.

Among a sample of more than 20,000 people who tested positive for

Covid-19 between April last year and March this year, 13.7% continued to experience symptoms for at least 12 weeks.

This was eight times higher than in a control group of people who are unlikely to have had Covid-19, the ONS said. Of those who tested positive, a fifth (21%) still had coronavirus symptoms five weeks after a test.

Women were more likely than men to report long Covid at the 12-week point – with 14.7% doing so compared with 12.7% of men.

Prevalence of long Covid was also highest among those aged 25 to 34 (18.2%) than other age groups.

From a larger sample of people with and without Covid tests, the ONS estimated 1.1 million people in UK private households experienced long Covid in the month to March 6.

Of those self-reporting long Covid, those aged 35 to 69 were most affected, as were women, people living in the most deprived areas, those working in health or social care and those with a pre-existing condition.

Health and social care workers experienced the highest prevalence of rates of self-reported long Covid among employment groups.