Are vaccines for over 12s likely to ever be offered in UK?

[Staffy1]

I thought this was the plan at one point, but lately everything I've read about it seems to be suggesting it's never going to be offered to children now. I think in a supposed free and civilised country the choice should be there for vulnerable children at least. I would hope if it won't be offered on the NHS, it will at least be allowed privately once they have offered it to everyone they are going to offer it to. If not, I don't think we live in a free country.

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow

Germany and US have approved it for 12 and up ( or is it 10 and up)

Judging by the current fiasco in the dept of education it seems that vaccines for teens are the only way out of this fiasco. My dd14 will absolutely be having it.

As of today here in Italy, we can book our vaccination for any age on a rolling day to day countdown. The 12-15s will be able to book by the end of next week. DD is 17 and we can book hers next Friday.

It's wonderful news and the 300 teens I teach are very happy to have this chance. Our final year students who gave exams at the end of June were all done last weekend. (that was a regional decision though, not sure all regions did it)

I bite someone’s hand off if they offered me an AZ booster. And l think take up would be massive in teens. Some of them actually want to be at school and learning. Why on earth would it be low?

Agree absolutely.

@Seeline

COuld that also be due to the fact that secondary school kids are testing twice weekly so more cases are actually being identified?

The testing is completely voluntary and many aren't doing it. Those tests are lateral flow- cases are PCR. Everyone is eligible for free lateral flow tests and surge testing is happening in many hotspots. It's not the testing. It's the virus spreading like wildfire through an unvaccinated population.

Why are we assuming vaccine means no more isolating for children? It doesn't mean that for adults currently.
I can see that line being pushed on parents as coercion to vaccinate their dc tho, any vaccinated dc don't need to isolate as a contact but non vaccinated do.

In France we will be starting to vaccinate the over 12s in a couple of weeks. All vaccinations are free. No AZ for the under 55s I think.

Presumably there will be quite a lot of data from other countries fairly soon.

To pp

I haven’t met a single parent who intends to vaccinate their kids

Kids by and large don’t need it so why give them something new? All the AZ data took months to come out so who’s to say the kids data doesn’t yield something

That aside I wouldn’t vaccinate them purely because they don’t need it

Same way I don’t vaccinate for chicken pox or flu

Never had it and if they did they will use their immune system cos that’s what it’s for?!

All this worry and excuse of vulnerable kids - do people realise hardly any kids have died even including the data on vulnerable kids? Even vulnerable kids are very very low risk.

Someone people here may be happy to risk their kids. I expect most will wait a few years

In my dd school no one I know does lft tests and haven’t done them since the first week they went back.

If you have a single death in a child from the vaccine - likely given the number of healthy adults - then for me that risk shifts balance the other way given hardly any healthy kids have died (if any)

Do you go around surveying people watapalava?? Uptake for LFTs remains pretty good at my school. Every vaccination that comes around the Jehovahs Witness children exempt themselves and otherwise thats it. I think you believe your own echo chamber and wonder exactly what ideas you are putting into others' heads.

I assume you expect education to carry on though, undisrupted, because you oppose testing so won't know about the spread of cases, and a vaccination programme for children.

Coronavirus is not only about deaths, but you know that really.

They are open here ( Italy) from last night and I will be booking....Uts Pzifer or Modena

piggy

personally id like testing and isolation to stop completely once all adults vaccinated.

I expect it will eventually and gov have hinted to that affect

for many - inc government, it is all about deaths. Because how do you balance long covid fatigue for example against worsened mental health, loss of someones job, home etc. Some would argue they impact more on a family

Gov are doing everything they can with trials to stop isolation of contacts - once all vaccinated and risk of serious illness reduced, contact isolation will be gone and covid 19 will be another virus we live with like all the other covid viruses

I do expect low uptake amongst kids and it'll drop like lead balloon once a single healthy child dies (which it will as adults have died with pfizer and AZ) because i haven't read of many (any) who've died without issues of covid. Right now i've had my vaccine because being mid 40 I know that my risk of covid is worse but the risk of death to most kids is almost zero from covid so once one death happens it'll be game over

Welll, we'll have to see wata .

@Watapalava

To pp

I haven’t met a single parent who intends to vaccinate their kids

Kids by and large don’t need it so why give them something new? All the AZ data took months to come out so who’s to say the kids data doesn’t yield something

That aside I wouldn’t vaccinate them purely because they don’t need it

Same way I don’t vaccinate for chicken pox or flu

Never had it and if they did they will use their immune system cos that’s what it’s for?!

All this worry and excuse of vulnerable kids - do people realise hardly any kids have died even including the data on vulnerable kids? Even vulnerable kids are very very low risk.

Someone people here may be happy to risk their kids. I expect most will wait a few years

In my dd school no one I know does lft tests and haven’t done them since the first week they went back.

I agree with you but it's not a welcome opinion on MN

The government doesn't appear to have any plans to vaccinate kids.

They're letting them get infected at school instead.

Cheaper I s'pose.

In the short term.

It seems a bit unwise given that we don't know what effect the new Delta variant has on children.

But if parents minded there'd be a big hoohah about it on here wouldn't there?

@Wakemeuuuup

My kids will be holding their arms out begging for the jab

I assume they are CEV?

Under- 40s are only being given the Pfizer now.

Covid: Children as young as 12 could get vaccines in Wales

Welsh government seem to be considering it - whether it will go ahead or not I've no idea.

If offered for over 12s I will give my eldest the choice as she is old enough to make her own choice regarding vaccination, if under 12s start being offered it mine won’t be having it at this moment in time maybe in a few years once all the studies and data is back

@randomlyLostInWales

Covid: Children as young as 12 could get vaccines in Wales

Welsh government seem to be considering it - whether it will go ahead or not I've no idea.

I can't imagine Mark Drakeford will just let children catch covid and refuse to tell the Welsh people anything about it.

But in England we tolerated our government's herd immunity experiment and now our children are next.

I haven’t met a single parent who intends to vaccinate their kids

And I haven’t met a single parent who intends not to vaccinate their teen.

I can't imagine Mark Drakeford will just let children catch covid and refuse to tell the Welsh people anything about it.

I have no clue what this actually means.

I'd hope they'd base any vaccination program on a close analysis of risk/benefit which would depend on rates of covid levels come Autumn - as lower the rates the less risk covid is to everyone and less obvious the benfits to vaccinating teens.

I suspect politicking will get involved in any decisions and I can't say the current welsh health minister is inspriing confidence with her constant doom mongering apparently for head lines and visiblity.

If they could have a normal school year and exams I'd be happier - though given their ages they get a huge say in any vaccinations they'd get.

@randomlyLostInWales

In England the government stopped PHE releasing data about covid outbreaks in schools.

Covid outbreaks in schools are suspected of driving the third wave, and obviously letting a variant we know nothing about spread in schools is putting children at risk.

It might not be a giant herd immunity experiment on children.

It might just be that the government know if parents knew the facts about covid in schools we'd expect them to do something about it - and they can't be arsed.

What I don't understand is that licensing a drug/vaccine is a medical/pharmaceutical decision normally made by the regulatory authority MHRA and then the decision on funding it is made by NICE (also an expert clinical authority).

In the case of the Covid vaccines for children, the decision seems to lie with non-expert government ministers and the PM. These people are not qualified to decide on health and medical matters. They have no medical or pharmaceutical qualifications, and in some cases no financial qualifications either.

The decision-making should lie with MHRA and Nice in my opinion. They are best qualified to decide if the vaccines are safe in children and are appropriate for funding.

Furthermore, the UK is going to lag behind now that the US and EU have approved Covid vaccination in over-12s.

How can we hope to get schools and universities back on track without vaccinating these age groups? Everyone else is getting back to normal while university students are stuck at home doing elearning and school children are suffering repeated isolations at home when they don't even have a positive test.

When the young people of this country are in charge of running it, the old people who left them behind in the vaccination programme and put them bottom of the priorities on spending and neglected their education and left them stuck at home for months on end will be making some interesting decisions about old-age provision and protecting our generation in the next pandemic....