Teens will not be routinely vaccinated, JCVI recommends

[noblegiraffe]

Their report isn't out till tomorrow, but continuing with the govt tradition of making big announcements via favoured news outlets, the Telegraph reports that the guidance will be that children aged 12+ will not be offered routine covid vaccinations.

"Instead, under guidance due to be issued on Monday, jabs will be offered to children between 12 and 15 who are deemed vulnerable to Covid or who live with adults who are immunosuppressed or otherwise vulnerable to the virus. They will also now be offered to all 17-year-olds within three months of their 18th birthday."

www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/07/17/children-will-get-covid-vaccines-vulnerable/

So from September, there will be literally nothing stopping covid spreading around schools bar the odd open window.

@kowari

If it doesn't change by then, couldn't the 17 and 9 month thing affect exams next year for summer born children? My DS is 15, but if he was two years older I wouldn't be recommending that he have a jab that could give him flu like symptoms just before exams. I think there should be more flexibility, such as down to 17 and a half at least.

That is FAR too sensible!

I think all Y13s should be offered it so that their A levels, and hence university places, are not affected by Covid fatigue and brain fog if they get it at the wrong time. It has been really interesting to see the polarisation of views on here.

[quote Monkey2001]@permanentlydizzy do you know that the 17 and 9 months thing is about continuity. The same rules apply to under 18s and fully vaccinated adults. If they could not get first jab until 18th birthday there would be a few months where they have different rules from others - eg they would have to isolate post contact. It is a bit of pragmatism![/quote]
I see what you’re saying re whenever their birthday falls in their 18th year, but my point wasn’t really that, it was that they vaccinated the most vulnerable in the older cohorts first, but aren’t applying the same logic to younger groups.

With the system as it is, what’s going to happen is that GP Vaccine Leads are going to return to making their own minds up about who does and doesn’t get vaccinated within the younger cohort. This will leave those young people, like my ds2, whose diagnosis doesn’t sit neatly in any group, without any protection, whilst others who are not vulnerable, are vaccinated by virtue of being a few months older.

@Monkey2001

I think all Y13s should be offered it so that their A levels, and hence university places, are not affected by Covid fatigue and brain fog if they get it at the wrong time. It has been really interesting to see the polarisation of views on here.

Yes, but if you say this you are accused of wanting to give your kids long term side effects. DS' whole future is riding on these A levels.

That’s it. I want to give my kid long time side effects. Of brilliant A levels :-)

Sorry haven't RTFT but obvious question for me was what about 11 years old who are CEV at secondary??

@RumblyMumbly

Sorry haven't RTFT but obvious question for me was what about 11 years old who are CEV at secondary??

It’s not approved for children under 12 so don’t think any under 12s will get it yet.

It isn’t, the jab is safer than catching Covid.

For older age groups, yes, but you can't apply the same risk/benefit analysis to every demographic. Children and teenagers are at an exceptionally tiny risk of death from Covid. Teenagers may develop Long Covid, yes. Vaccines and drugs can also have different effects in people of different ages (e.g aspirin, safe for adults, can be deadly for children) so you can't use adult trial data to make firm conclusions about safety for children. Children's vaccine trials are only just starting to return results so I really think it's too early to be saying that the jab is definitely safer than Covid for them.

It’s a bloody ridiculous situation for 17-year olds going into year 13. Apparently they just disappear into a big black hole at that age, where they are too old to be offered the flu jab (which will be offered up to children all the way up to year 11); but too young to be offered the covid jab until 3 months before their 18th birthday, even if this falls when they are taking exams, or in the middle of winter when they’ve got the flu or some other winter virus nobody thought they needed any protection against… And to add insult to injury, if that fucking ridiculous timing of the jab doesn’t work out for them, so they are not fully vaccinated by their 18th birthday, they won’t be allowed to celebrate the end of their exams in any nightclubs. Or go abroad easily, if that’s permitted by then. And all the while, they are old enough to be taking driving lessons, working in the hospitality industry, spreading covid at unvaccinated adult rates, and will be hoping not to have a year of bad luck healthwise because of exams. If this decision is in the interest of that particular group of young people, then I’m a monkey’s uncle.

Other countries are vaccinating all 12 to 15 year old why?
They clearly will be the biggest spreaders.
I'm worried about eldest gcses next year she won't be 16 until Feb.

hmm

I am wondering just how immunosuppressed the teenager has to be and just how clinically vulnerable the parent has to be.

It all seems a little vaguer than I would like really, though we ought to meet the requirements on several counts.

I note that summer born children are at a disadvantage already, this will add to it for children in exam years won't it

The BBC are saying the household member has to be "somebody with a weak immune system" rather than clinically vulnerable or ECV. Mind I imagine most of the ECV will have a weak immune system. I just need to make sure all the links between me, my medication and my dd are correct at the GP.

@3asAbird

Other countries are vaccinating all 12 to 15 year old why? They clearly will be the biggest spreaders. I'm worried about eldest gcses next year she won't be 16 until Feb.

Because we don't currently have enough supply.

Particularly since Astrazeneca is apparently pretty much ineffective against the Beta strain. And quite a lot of clinically vulnerable were given AZ....

Unfortunately there is an urgent need to give Pfizer or Moderna booster jabs to the people who had AZ.

I really hope we can get more supply so that we can also vaccine all over 12s.

And I know some people will say forget the clinically vulnerable adults, jab the kids. But we need to remember who is most likely to fill up the hospitals and get sick leaving essential services without enough staff.

We really need more supply. Hopefully we'll get it in the not too distant future.

The list seems very limited.

Good. Totally abandoned utterly wrong to inject children with a jab that could well be more risky than actually getting covid. Abhorrent.

Very little info in the statement by JCVI www.gov.uk/government/news/jcvi-issues-advice-on-covid-19-vaccination-of-children-and-young-people

It's a sad day to be the parent of a type 1 diabetic 13-year-old who goes into DKA with viruses on a regular basis. Apparently not vulnerable enough.

@SchnitzelVonCrummsTum

It's a sad day to be the parent of a type 1 diabetic 13-year-old who goes into DKA with viruses on a regular basis. Apparently not vulnerable enough.

Seriously? That's surprising.

I would have thought they'd include diabetes on the list.

List of eligible kids, as it stands, seems incredibly short on JCVI website. Daughter also has other autoimmune disorders but none of them put her on the list either! Time for us to start putting pressure on the CCG and secondary care to work together to try to change this (or, for instance, let vulnerable kids be 'back up' when there is spare Pfizer vaccine). But I'm not holding my breath. We've been so careful but she's just going to get it in September, isn't she? It feels inevitable. F*ck.

Yes, if you send her to school. There’ll be no stopping the spread there.

If she dies with it, people will just dismiss it as she "had underlying conditions". But the underlying conditions don't qualify her for a jab. It literally feels like nobody cares about our kids.

I wonder if the short list is because they might need to give mRNA (Pfizer or Moderna) boosters to people, particularly the clinically vulnerable, who've had Astrazeneca.

In America, where they mostly used mRNA vaccines, 99.5% of the deaths are in the unvaccinated.

I don't know for sure but we do know that supplies were tight, and now there's the threat of the Beta strain (already in France). It's thought that astrazeneca isn't particularly effective against that strain.

I wonder if things might change in the autumn. Astrazeneca are working on boosters, tweaked to protect against some of the newer strains (don't know if that includes Beta). I believe they also have children on a trial. Fingers crossed the trials go well.

The list has a grey area with the severe learning disabilities, for many in this group will have diagnosis either out of date or a diagnosis erring on the side of caution with mild or moderate until post 16. Disabilities and difficulties are often intermixed but two different diagnoses. Many parents will be reliant on the interpretation of the GP to get their child vaccinated.