Why aren’t schools giving the vaccine?

[bsquared]

Schools are really efficient at giving the vaccine to school-age children and have been doing it this way for decades.

Why is the distribution of the coronavirus different?

Umm, linda, you do realise school nurses areactual nurses??!

In a group WhatsApp I'm in were all fully vaccinated, there's only 2 in 10 of us that have said we want our teenagers vaccinating.

Just lots of articles in the press about poor take up among 16-18 year olds

In my area the walk in centre only started offering to 16 and 17 year olds on Wednesday last week.
So any articles about poor take up sounds like press hyperbole. So give them a chance (17 year old DS tells me his social media has been full of people getting the vaccine since Wednesday).

Again to reiterate- it is the NHS vaccine service who plan and run these clinics in schools- my job is to facilitate by booking the hall, organising a timetable, emailing parents etc. We don't even get a say on the date. Schools are not the ones making these decisions! And as pp have said, is it really so hard to get to a clinic? Some parents really do want us to do everything!

I don't think any other vaccine requires you to wait , socially distanced, for 15 minutes before release? So that's a logistic. Can you imagine how long it will take in a 1600 pupil school?

Exactly!

@Wellbythebloodyhell

In a group WhatsApp I'm in were all fully vaccinated, there's only 2 in 10 of us that have said we want our teenagers vaccinating.

I think - and I am as guilty of this as anyone - that we tend to associate both physically and online with those whose views are similar to our own (or where a particular viewpoint has become common or ‘the accepted group norm’). That’s why we get people saying ‘Nobody I know is taking any precautions now’ AND ‘Everyone I know is still wearing a mask’ - and they can both be absolutely right.

National / larger polls are more representative, but obviously subject to issues too.

Don't need evidence. I know what I see and hear.

As other posters have said, do you think schools will have anywhere to store them?? Honestly this is getting ridiculous.

Wouldn't you want to be there with your child if they were having it? To comfort them and show them that you are there?

We have a peripatetic school nursing service, who visit different schools on different days/weeks to undertake for flu vacinnes, HPV vaccines, height/weight meaurement as well as all the other stuff they do. I know that some members of the school nursing team are currently supporting the local vaccine clinics during the school holidays. Not all schools have 6th forms here. 16/17 year olds will be spread out over many schools/colleges, some 16 year olds will be Y11, some will be Y12/school leaver/FE college. It does seem a bit more sensible to concentrate the vaccination resource locally

@Peteycat do you have DC, do you let them have vaccinations at school?

My DS(16) had his jab the other day. He went to the GP on his own, I bet he would have loved it if I was standing outside to comfort him when he came out the door!

For the poster asking me if I'm against flu jabs. No I am not. I refer to my previous post regarding the information on the government website.

Don't need evidence. I know what I see and hear.

Had enough of experts?

Ineedaholidaynow, ha I'm sure he would have been a typical 16 year old and said er get off! 😂

I'm not saying 16 year olds need comforting, some might do though! I'm referencing younger children there.

@Piggywaspushed

Hello!

On the social distancing issue, my students don’t get to social distance at school ... do yours? This is, for me, the most distressing aspect of teaching an unvaccinated population - seeing students who go home to vulnerable family members, who have been wearing their masks throughout the year (even when we haven’t had to) because they have no means of socially distancing among their peer group.

For the fifteen minute wait, I can’t see why that is particularly problematic. Every school I have ever worked in has managed the jabs, including reactions to the jabs, according to the given protocol relating to the vaccine. Schools manage vaccination distribution really well.

In terms of preference for walk-in centres over school distribution, my concern is about vulnerable groups. Schools can achieve a coverage across cohorts that cannot be comparably achieved by walk-in centres. We need to support those who do not have access / awareness of their eligibility for the jab. Schools have many mechanisms for identifying and supporting vulnerable groups and have a particularly acute knowledge of how vulnerability might play out in their local area (... and how to support).

Schools would be my preferred distribution model for vaccination of school-age children.

No had enough of people discussing vaccinating children when the experts have already said not yet.

Some of the secondary schools in my area at the moment are running summer schools/week transition time for new Y7s, as really wanted by many parents (very high uptake), so wouldn't really be suitable and really, have enough going on with needing to prepare for the new school year and for LFT testing that starts next week here. I do not know where you could get space to do both the LFT testing and the storage needed for vaccines in many schools as the testing is often already taking up gym spaces.

Colleges might be a better answer, but it depends on the area and what they're doing.

And as others said, 16-17 year olds have only just started to be eligible and a lot of coverage is really patchy so it's hard to say what the take-up is. My DS1 is eager to have it, but the only walk-in centre he can access only did it 2 weekends where he was busy and has now stopped because the vaccine site is moving this week. We don't know when they'll be available again, but we got a handy letter in the post that gave him a website to find walk-in vaccine places to tell him pretty much the exact same thing.

As other posters have said, do you think schools will have anywhere to store them?? Honestly this is getting ridiculous.

The NHS vaccine teams who come into schools bring the vaccine with them. So if schools are asked to facilitate some part of the vaccine rollout by providing an area for the NHS to set up in, I presume that sufficient vaccine for a session will be brought with the staff. Schools won’t need to order in / store vaccines, in the same way as I don’t find boxes of flu vaccines in The stationery cupboard in the run ip to the annual flu vaccination...

But @Peteycat but you talk about strangers coming at children with needles and parents being there to comfort them etc. So do you use the same emotive language when talking about other vaccination programmes that are carried out in schools?

@Piggywaspushed

Can you please respond to my query about whether you have thought about the wait for 15 minutes issue, supervised? or do you not think that's an issue?

I can tell you now, school vaccines are not socially distanced. They're a scrum. We can , this once, avoid disrupting lessons, using established walk in centres.

I didn't have to wait 15 mins after either of mine. Just asked DH and friend and they didn't either. Never heard this.

School may be your preferred distribution model but I'm sure it won't be the children's preferred model.

Never heard of waiting 15 minutes after ANY vaccination? Seriously, all clinical settings do this, some even offer you a biscuit.

Not in schools.

DS supposedly did after his Pfizer jab, although he seems to be home very quickly if he actually waited 15 minutes!

The primary children have the nasal vaccine it's very different. Yes, at the moment I dp use emotive language because I feel strongly about it.

Anecdotally, I know a very large 16-18 education site was asked whether they would be willing to act as a vaccination centre staffed by the NHS - and they said they could offer a hall in the weeks up to and just after the start of term.

The offer was not taken up.

Reallycutty? Everyone usually does! It's a whole process. That may be to do with driving but I doubt it as 20 year old DS had to wait when I drove him.