Are you vaccinating your young child against covid ?

No. Both kids ( aged 5) caught covid a few weeks back and were entirely asymptomatic. Benefits not outweighed by risks etc

Yes my 7 year old has had his first jab

Absolutely fucking not.

There is no point in vaccinating them. As healthy children, the risk of severe Covid is incredibly low anyway so the main purpose of the vaccination is pretty much redundant.

There is no point in having it at this time of the year when cases naturally plummet because it will be long past peak effectiveness before the autumn.

I'm not enthused about a vaccine that makes you feel more ill than the illness. My Covid at Christmas was just a sore throat. 2 weeks earlier, the booster had me in bed for a day, albeit not quite as bad as round 1 which had me close to fainting. I'll give it the benefit of the doubt that my jabs made the illness milder, but given that DS2 had it twice within 3 months (Christmas & early March) he's already sucessfully fended it off, it's clearly not a novel virus to him. In March we made the most of the time off school with country walks and bike rides. DS1 has never tested positive despite syptoms while DS2 had it, so his immune system seems to be coping fine. He may have had it in December 2019? There will never be an answer to what that nasty illness was anyway.

We have no travel plans this year and will see what happens long term. Restrictions are a major deterrent to travel, and there's plenty of places where it won't be an issue.

Now testing isn't mandatory, unless my DCs are actually properly ill, I wouldn't even be able to answer if they've had Covid in the past 12 weeks anyway... once we get past 12 weeks since the last round.

I might get my 9 year old done before Autumn. I'm keeping an eye out for more information about the Hepatitis outbreak too. I was listening to Dr Chand on the radio a week or two ago and they didn't seem to be able to rule out a potential link to children who had recently had Covid so I will be looking at any further research.

Well illness has got in the way of today's vaccination but will be definitely vaccinating as soon as possible!

I'm not doing my 5 year DD yet...I'm waiting and seeing what happens to the virus and if it multies again before next winter. I have several friends who doing the same. I haven't ruled it it either. She had every other vaccine to date. I triple vaccinated.

*newsround (wtf autocorrect)

10yo wanted to have his (I don't think he's been scared into it - I'm not particularly anxious about covid although am fully vaxxed myself, his 'news sources' are newshound and the Week junior, and we live in a largely anti-vax London community). His call so I booked it for him. He felt a bit rough the next day. I don't regret it.

He's not knowingly had covid so far, although we only v rarely tested for asymptomatic infection (eg before seeing vulnerable family, or going to the theatre) so likely this would have been missed.

I would feel v differently about my (under-5) younger child, and not sure what we'll do if that age group are invited too.

I haven't vaccinated my kids for covid, as others have said I have not seen any evidence of the benefits outweighing the risks.

what I don't understand yet is what happened next year regarding travel? The government are not going to vaccinate the whole country again so will the jab requirement for insurance go?

Science is clear, vaccines don't stop you getting COVID necessarily but if you do get it, your symptoms will likely be far less severe which could keep you or your kids out of ICU. The more of us vaccinated the lower the viral load anyone is exposed to who does get the virus meaning again, their symptoms will likely be far less severe. Long COVID is also a real risk that lessens with the vaccine. And finally less risk of COVID mutating again with more of us vaccinated. Despite what the current rhetoric is, COVID isn't just getting milder - as we all know it mutates rapidly and there is no guarantee that the next one won't be way, way worse than all the other mutations. If young people are the most exposed group through less vaccines they'll be most vulnerable to it.

My 5 and 7 year old have both been double vaxxed. Absolutely no ill effects at all. In fact a few weeks after their last shot myself, their dad and younger sister all contracted Covid and had to go into quarantine. They boys didn't get anything, no so much as a sniffle! I also expected them to feel a little rough after having the vaccine like I did but no, they were absolutely fine.

Definitely not. We all had covid in mar 2020. Then the adults vaccinated and from that point my dh and I have had palpitations. Both fit n healthy never happened before. Can't prove it was vaccine or a long term effect of covid. Either way, the risk of heart problems with kids and vaccines outweighs any positive effect for me esp as they've had it twice now and been fine. Not anti Vax generally though.

No - both DH and I are double vaxxed (no booster). Teen DD had one jab initially but no more and 11 yo DC won’t be having any.

All recently had Covid (DH still has it) and fine.

The travel thing is a pain - as our second dose was almost a year ago (for me, anyway), we had to follow the entry requirements for unvaccinated travellers. I feel uncomfortable having Covid vaccines just to travel so we will avoid countries like Spain as a result.

Yes, my 5YO had his first dose a couple of weeks after his birthday. He is CV and his dad is CEV (takes immunosuppressants) so it's extra important for us.

DS had a mild dose of covid last autumn but there's no guarantees that a different variant would be the same.

Yes

No

Yes we are vaccinating our 8 and 10 yr old due to ECV grandparents.

No, Covid is not a life threatening illness for them.

Im not sure I see the point at the moment. Omicron seems to evade the vaccine, or the vaccine wears off quickly. I know loads of people triple jabbed who’ve caught covid recently.

I’m very pro vaccine, but this one doesn’t stop transmission (I’m tripled jabbed caught it and passed it onto my kids) and young kids don’t seem to get particularly ill from covid, so to me it seems like a waste of a jab when we could be giving over 60’s extra jab or sending some overseas where they are desperately needed.

Apparently the majority of children were fine and at no risk during all outbreaks. I'm sticking to this and not vaccinating my youngest.

The oldest chose to have it and was so poorly with side effects (more so than when she had covid!)

Mine will make their own choice when they need to. At the moment it's a no and I'm happy with that.

I am not getting my 6 and 11 year old done. Does this affect them for travel insurance?

You "aren't sure" whether to have your child injected with something to annoy someone.

Wow. Parent of the year.