The Times today

[ToomuchHeat]

(Last line ‘mass exposure’)

I’m broadly ok with the government’s reopening strategy (though like some don’t see why they didn’t keep masks for longer) but I just don’t understand what they’re doing with children and how they expect this to play out with them. The healthy ones can’t be vaccinated (the fact that CEV ones can’t be either is a different issue) so to get their immunity are they supposed to seek covid out, a la chicken pox parties?

My two teenagers haven’t had it yet - part luck and part diligently following the rules - and it’s this sword of Damocles hanging over us. There is a tiny part of me that wonders if I just put them in contact with it we can get it over with. (DH and I are both double jabbed.) But that’s nuts (I certainly never did chicken pox parties) - what parent would willingly put their children through that?

I’d just like to know how the government expects children to become immune if they won’t give them a vaccination the MHRA has agreed is not unsafe and that other countries just as developed as the U.K. are using in over-12s. I haven’t heard anything about that though the answer may be out there.

Re children's vaccinates. The JVCI have to look at the ethics on whether there is benefit to children themselves having vaccines. They looked at school closures as part of this. They are still concluding there is insufficient data and on balance since the number of children at risk of covid itself is tiny and then restricted to those who have serious underlying conditions (who have now been recommended for vaccine - whether they are getting access to this is another separate debate) because the risks of side effects are unknown.

Knowns: rate of covid in children of school age and rate of serious cases
Unknowns: rate of side effects in this age group and rate of long covid.

However in terms of unknowns they will still be looking at the ranges likely based on the information we do know.

At the moment whilst there is concern about long covid, there is clearly not a concern about the rate of it and how serious it is. That isnt to say that some children wont have it.

The point here is that the JVCI are saying there isn't a sufficient risk from covid or long covid to take the risk of vaccinating a group which gets little benefit from it from an ethical point of view and therefore they can not recommend it without seeing a significant reason to or clarification that side effects from vaccinating occur at a lower level than harms attached to having covid.

The point here is two fold: if we do vaccines and get a spate of side effects we have a problem and that may actually undermine vaccine programmes across the board by undermining public confidence in vaccines.

The MHRA may have approved the vaccine (on an emergency basis) for this age group in terms of overall safety. That doesn't mean a full vaccination programme for all is appropriate / ethical though. It means that in theory if you wanted to go private it and make an informed decision about it, you could (in practice this isnt possible yet due to vaccine supplies and how they are under government control) or if you have a particular reason to have the vaccine (to protect a family member or because clinically vulnerable) you can.

When you have a mass vaccine programme which has government weight behind it, you almost need a higher level of confidence in the vaccine because you are making an informed decision on a mass scale on behalf of the population at a population level (so individual outliers need to be considered as part of this - and actually thats whats been done in terms of recommendations for those most vulnerable and where they have vulnerable family).

Personally im glad that we are looking at both ethics as well as safety for a drug on emergency approval. The unknowns clearly aren't stacking up sufficiently to justify a mass vaccine programme at this stage.

I’d just like to know how the government expects children to become immune if they won’t give them a vaccination the MHRA has agreed is not unsafe and that other countries just as developed as the U.K. are using in over-12s. I haven’t heard anything about that though the answer may be out there.

They have natural levels of immunity that adults dont and when they reach a certain age, they will be vaccinated to protect later in life. But they dont get sufficient benefit from a vaccine to merit having it unless they have particular reason to or their age is high enough to put them at increased risk. Plus ethics.

Not hard to understand.

Vaccines are not infallible and carry the risk of side effects which may be greater than the risk of covid in most children.

there is clearly not a concern about the rate of [long covid] and how serious it is

In that case, why have the Government set up 15 centres nationwide for kids with long covid at a cost of many millions?

Re Long Covid, we just don't know the full extent of healthcare issues in the future.

There manifestly is a lot of concern from parents and quite a few doctors about potential issues, and we won't have clarity for some time.

I'd agree it is a difficult issue to plan for.

@RedToothBrush I accept what you’re saying about the JCVI and vaccine ethics. I don’t agree but reasonable minds can differ and they are the experts. At some point they will have to make private vaccination available and if my kids still haven’t had Covid by then they will be first in the queue to be jabbed.

But it seems to me this is another reason why the isolation requirement after contact needs to go: clearly the government is counting on the healthy young becoming infected because they won’t vaccinate them, no? It really is “let it rip” for the young, isn’t it?

They have natural levels of immunity that adults dont can you explain what you mean by that?

As we give loads of vaccines - MMR etc - to kids as they don't have "natural levels of immunity"?

No!

They are saying that kids won't need to isolate like vaccinated adults after a certain point because the vaccine will be doing its stuff and the young not being at risk.

The emotive phrase 'let it rip' immediately summons up the idea of kids being at risk. The whole point here is they are no more at risk than other daily risks in life that we face daily and cannot be eliminated without causing other harms.

We have a natural system for immunity which builds up over time. The whole point with a pandemic is a population which iys vulnerable because we havent had this natural system in operation previously. Vaccines fill the void for covid in this sense in the gap between the start of a pandemic and when it becomes just circulating at levels which are managable / treatable (think about about how the spanish flu pandemic petered out - we are trying to fill the gap and limit the peaks of pandemic rather than stop the disease because ultimately we cannot)

This is about risk being at levels that do not cause concern.

You wouldn't use the phrase 'let it rip' about other minor illnesses. You might close a school because of a norovirus outbreak but you wouldn't do much more than that because the risk isn't sufficient for example.

'Let it rip' implies harm to children which just isn't backed up in data and is used merely to scare people rather than explain scientifically in a manner which talks about risk profiles being unequal and naturally occurring immunity being observed.

We give mmr vaccines to children because the risk to children is known to be high and that these diseases work in ways which dont have natural immunity which builds.

We have significant research in coronaviruses to know most likely scenarios on how they interact with humans.

the kids who are vulnerable won't get the vaccines in time to have full immunity as they would need to get the first jab this week. That doesn't appear to be happening.

They are offering vaccination only to a small subsection of the CEV/CV 12-15s and the CEV/ CV families.

So it is "let it rip". For them.

@RedToothBrush

We give mmr vaccines to children because the risk to children is known to be high and that these diseases work in ways which dont have natural immunity which builds.

We have significant research in coronaviruses to know most likely scenarios on how they interact with humans.

and what makes you think that children have "natural immunity to covid"?

over 2% of years 7-11 were infected up to July 17. Do you think they should have had "natural immunity" and if so, why did they still get infected?

Obviously vaccine supply is currently a consideration, we can’t magic vaccines up. We have millions on order but of course they take time to actually make. Those who think we should be vaccinating 12-18 year olds now… do you think they should be done ahead of boosters for NHS workers and the elderly and vulnerable?

Also re "let it rip" being an emotive phrase, I can be more emotive if you like?

We have vaccinated all the adults but we are not bothering to vaccinate the young teenagers. As has been pointed out the MHRA has approved the vaccine for 12 -15s but the JCVi has not. The fact that we have a poor supply of Pfizer is germane to this.

So the plan is that the kids all go back in September and get infected then, week after week, with a new disease, recognised only 18 months ago, that we don't understand and that we know can cause deaths in children, including children with no previously identified medical conditions.

As a parent (albeit of a child with vulnerabilities, as yet unvaccinated) this seems profoundly unsatisfactory to me.

@FourTeaFallOut

No I wasn't!

I think that's amazing. Less than 1000 people from the millions and millions who have been double jabbed, including tge most elderly, the most sick and the most exposed...we couldn't have realistically hoped for more from a vaccine.

Less than 1000 out of the 29,000 in the study surely?

Re supply, what then happened to the many millions of doses of different vaccines that Kate Bingham ordered, enough to vaccinate everyone 6 times over, or whatever it was.

Re sequence, if we have supplies for 18 30 year olds that they are refusing to take up, I would suggest that these are used to vaccinate the most vulnerable secondary schoolkids instead.

I don't know if you have seen the size of a state classroom, how tightly packed the chairs are, how unventilated the rooms?

And we are sending the kids back to this without proper isolation for children who are likely to be infected, so that covid will well "RIP THROUGH" those classes. And kill the occasional kid, as it has done already.

'Let it rip' is one of those Covid phrases that makes me , it's all over the place. People must think they are the first to ever say it. So dramatic.
It's in there with 'sheeple' and 'killing grannies' etc.

@herecomesthsun

the kids who are vulnerable won't get the vaccines in time to have full immunity as they would need to get the first jab this week. That doesn't appear to be happening.

They are offering vaccination only to a small subsection of the CEV/CV 12-15s and the CEV/ CV families.

So it is "let it rip". For them.

That is an entirely different debate as far as im concerned because the risk profile os different and they are clear outliers from children as a group as a whole.

Does anyone genuinely believe that the JVCI would make a decision without giving it serious consideration - especially for children, because thats the thing thats harder to get my head around.

People saying 'follow the science' and then 'oh not that science'.

We are seeing now that the UK's decision to go with pfizer at 8 to 12 weeks rather than 3 to 4 based on science in other related areas was smarter than it was ever given credit. We are seeing that the decision to crack on with AZ in the UK was wise (where would we be if we'd just gone with Pfizer alone). It may not prove to be as effective in the long run, but its still looking better than the alternative. The uk is already gearing up for boosters and about to commence on this, whilst other countries are only just waking up to the idea and don't have plans anywhere as well developed (the latest Israel data has sent shock waves).

We are so keen to put the boot in and assume that everyone else is doing things better rather than assume that our scientists are actually more than competent, are using a range of data and maybe coming out with differences - but notably only usually in areas of very finely balanced arguments either way. And certainly we don't seem to congratulate when we've made decisions in crisis situations which have since proved to be soundly and fair assumptions based on other knowledge and in absence of full data in this particular area.

Either you think the JVCI is competent or you don't. You don't get to pick and choose when you think they are competent and when you don't because it doesn't match your non-professional opinions.

@Sparklingbrook

'Let it rip' is one of those Covid phrases that makes me , it's all over the place. People must think they are the first to ever say it. So dramatic. It's in there with 'sheeple' and 'killing grannies' etc.

it's sort of irritating, because in among the intellectual arguments about percentages and graphs, it reminds you that this virus actually drifts across a crowded room and kills people.

There's an Anglo Saxon immediacy to it.

Maybe I should use it more often.

@RedToothBrush

So assuming that the JCVi are competent and the American version is also competent, a question remains about how they came to different conclusions.

Of course there can be scientific differences of opinion.

However, practical considerations are often paramount. Such as they have huge supplies of Pfizer. And we currently don't.

The JCVi would have to take that into account as a responsible body.

So no disrespect to them.

But I would rather have all the vulnerable kids jabbed than not. And I think there would be parental choice for the others.

@lightand

Chronic fatigue and long covid are both illnesses, which manifest after a viral infection. Chronic fatigue, unlike long Covid can also have other causes. There is a lot of overlap between the two and the nhs list of CFS symptoms is very limited. The main difference is that covid by nature of this specific viral infection impacts the lungs whereas a lot of CFS sufferers become ill post glandular fever, which does not.

[quote Mommybunny]@RedToothBrush I accept what you’re saying about the JCVI and vaccine ethics. I don’t agree but reasonable minds can differ and they are the experts. At some point they will have to make private vaccination available and if my kids still haven’t had Covid by then they will be first in the queue to be jabbed.

But it seems to me this is another reason why the isolation requirement after contact needs to go: clearly the government is counting on the healthy young becoming infected because they won’t vaccinate them, no? It really is “let it rip” for the young, isn’t it?[/quote]
What exactly makes you think you have better knowledge and credentials.

Cos wow thats arrogant.

Re supply, what then happened to the many millions of doses of different vaccines that Kate Bingham ordered, enough to vaccinate everyone 6 times over, or whatever it was

They’re still ordered, they’re just not available yet. They will be, but things have to be prioritised in the meantime. How would you prioritise it?
Honestly though that’s not a novel concept. We could order 3 million new houses to be built today, for example. Would take years to build them. Surely you grasp that? They can’t make all 600 million doses available instantly.

@herecomesthsun when a poster uses the expression ‘let it rip’ I just think ‘oh it’s one of those overly dramatic posters’ and lose respect for what they’re trying to do/say. 🤷‍♀️

So assuming that the JCVi are competent and the American version is also competent, a question remains about how they came to different conclusions.

Levels of health care different in uk and us. Different vaccinated levels (theres a tipping point where its of benefit to children to vaccinate to prevent them being orphaned for example).

The US has a lot of people with unmanaged / treated / diagnosed conditions - especially in vulnerable at risk groups.

We have a thing called the NHS.

We are not the US. Our risk factors and considerations are different.

This seems to be a hard concept for people to understand. People keep comparing countries as if its a like for like comparison.

There are lots of things, healthcare wise, that the US and the U.K. so differently. Again, that’s not a novel concept.

@RedToothBrush - since when is ethics scientific? The JCVI does not base its decisions purely on science. The MHRA says the vaccine is safe for use on 12-17 year olds. That’s science.