Plan to jab 12-year-olds before new school year
Injections could be rolled out in August as Hancock points to high cases in children
COVID vaccines would be rolled out to children from as early as August under plans being drawn up in Whitehall, The Sunday Telegraph can disclose.
A government source said that under current modelling, “we would be ready” to begin vaccinating 12 to 15-year-olds by the second half of August, or early September at the latest.
Ministers are awaiting advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), which insiders expect will recommend the jab for younger teenagers, before they make a final decision.
However, writing in The Telegraph today, Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, warns that “a huge proportion of the latest cases are in children”, as he urges secondary school pupils to take a coronavirus test before returning to school tomorrow.
In other developments yesterday: There was growing pessimism in Whitehall over whether social distancing restrictions will be lifted on June 21, with ministers awaiting further data on hospitalisations caused by the Indian, or delta, variant of Covid; Tony Blair called for vaccinated people to be released from lockdown restrictions and said businesses should have the right to only admit inoculated customers; Thousands of University College London students were left disappointed after supplies ran out halfway through a four-hour vaccination clinic.
Officials are preparing to roll out the Pfizer jab in schools at the start of the next academic year, after the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, the medicines regulator, approved its use in 12 to 15-year-olds.
The move would mirror the way in which BCG injections were previously given to schoolchildren en masse.
However, if the decision is taken to vaccinate under-16s in the coming weeks, senior government figures say they expect to be ready to begin rolling out jabs to 12 to 15-year-olds as early as August.
In his article today, Mr Hancock writes: “The delta variant, first identified in India, is more transmissible and now makes up the majority of new Covid-19 cases in this country. So the mission for the weeks and months ahead is to stay ahead in the race between virus and vaccine.
“We have to show the same spirit that has taken us this far and keep doing our bit. That means keeping up the basics – like hands, face, space and fresh air – and getting regular tests. A huge proportion of the latest cases are in children, so it’s especially important all secondary school age children take a test today before going back from half term tomorrow and isolate if positive – to stop the spread and protect the education of their peers.
“And of course it’s critical we keep coming forward for our jabs when it’s our turn, including that vital second jab which we now know gives better protection against the delta variant.”
Children aged 10 and over have been responsible for more than a quarter of recent Covid-19 cases – the highest among all age groups, according to Public Health England data released last week. Yesterday, Prof Anthony Harnden, the JCVI’s deputy chairman, suggested that vaccinating under-16s might primarily benefit wider society, rather than the teenagers and children themselves. “In terms of being to their benefit, it’s either a health benefit or an educational benefit,” he said.
“That will be weighed up against the possibility of children transmitting to adults to protect other adults by immunising children, but the trouble with that is an ethical question about safety.”
Last night Gavin Williamson, the Education Secretary, joined Mr Hancock’s call for children to get tested before returning to school after the half-term break.
“Asymptomatic testing helps break chains of transmission by taking people who are infectious but don’t know it out of circulation,” Mr Williamson said.
“As half term comes to an end, take a Covid test before going back to the classroom.”
THOUSANDS of students were left disappointed yesterday after supplies ran out halfway through a four-hour vaccination clinic at University College London (UCL).
The majority of students who joined a queue at Hunter Street Clinic near King’s Cross station were told to go home as demand outstripped supply.
The first 450 people to show up were given a ticket for a vaccine, while a further 250 had booked slots, but the remainder of students were unable to secure an appointment.
It is the first time that a university has advertised a walk-in vaccine clinic to its students amid hopes that this will become a more regular means of administering jabs to young people.
The clinic, run by NHS Camden, had organised the event as a walk-in vaccination session for students who were not registered with a GP, with a view to ensuring that they did not miss out on getting vaccinated at a later date.
However, UCL said in a statement prior to the event that a vaccine “will be offered to all UCL students regardless of age”, on a first come, first served basis.
Some students had camped out from as early as 5am in an attempt to secure their ticket. By the time the clinic opened at midday, the queue was so long that it merged into itself and some new arrivals were able to cut in ahead of others.
Those in the queue said that police officers arrived in order to tell people to go home, as there was no chance of any further supplies being made available later on in the day.
Ammara Hughes, the GP and clinical director of Hunter Street Clinic who is in charge of managing its vaccine programme, said she had not anticipated the scale of demand among university students wanting their first dose.
“Our initial push was to get the student population from around here who aren’t registered with a GP, because we had no way of contacting them,” she said.
“So that’s what we asked, we worked with our local universities to say, ‘We’ll run a walk-in clinic for that group’. And then all of a sudden, everybody found out about the vaccine.
“Obviously we have a limit as to how many appointments we can give them in one day. Our priority was people who did not already have a GP, so people who we wouldn’t be able to contact with an invite for a vaccine.
“I think we’ve vaccinated about 600 or 700 people today. We’d left about 450 for walk-ins, because what the university had initially told us, we might get a couple of hundred. And all of a sudden we had a fair few thousand people.”
Those who were unable to receive their vaccine yesterday will be able to do so soon, as the clinic says that it has a “good supply” of the Pfizer jab.
A UCL spokesman said: “This opportunity was offered to us by the NHS and we promoted it in good faith.
“We made it very clear that vaccinations were available on a first come, first served basis. The day was good humoured and well marshalled, with students showing tremendous support for each other for getting vaccinated.
“We are grateful to the Bloomsbury Surgery (Hunter Street vaccination centre) who are now looking at opportunities to accommodate more students to be vaccinated in the coming weeks.”