U.K. OKs vaccines for children ages 12 to 15
Government betting on broad inoculations over restrictions to curb virus
LONDON—Britain’s chief medical officers said Monday children ages 12 to 15 should be vaccinated against coronavirus, despite a ruling by the government’s vaccine advisers that the step would have only marginal health benefits.
Chief medical officer Chris Whitty of England and his counterparts in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland said Monday that the age group should be given a single dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
They have yet to decide on whether to give the students a second dose.
The government has said it’s highly likely to follow the recommendation. Expanded vaccinations are expected to be part of a “tool kit” to control COVID-19 infections this fall and winter that Prime Minister Boris Johnson plans to announce Tuesday at a news conference.
Johnson’s Conservative government is hoping that widespread vaccinations, rather than restrictions, will keep COVID-19 infections in check.
Other countries — including Canada, the United States, France and Italy — already offer coronavirus vaccines to children 12 and up, but Britain has held off. It is currently inoculating people 16 and up, and almost 90 per cent of those eligible have had at least one vaccine dose.
This month, Britain’s joint committee on vaccination and immunization said vaccines should be given to12- to15-yearolds with underlying health conditions.
But it did not back a rollout to healthy children, who are at low risk of serious illness from the virus, saying the direct health benefits were marginal.
However, it said there might be wider societal factors to consider, such as on education or children acting as sources of transmission to more vulnerable groups.
The chief medical officers said it was “likely vaccination will help reduce transmission of COVID-19 in schools” and they were recommending the vaccines on public health grounds.
In his road map speech, Johnson will probably announce that the government will relinquish some of the emergency powers Parliament gave it after the pandemic began last year, including the authority to shut down businesses and schools, restrict gatherings and detain infectious people.
Virus cases now are 10 times the rate of a year ago, but vaccines are protecting many Britons from serious illness. Still, the U.K. is recording more than 100 coronavirus deaths a day, and about 8,000 people are hospitalized with COVID-19. That is less than a quarter of the wintertime peak, but the number is climbing.
Johnson is expected to say that mask-wearing, workfrom-home advice and physical distancing rules that were lifted in July could return if cases climb further.