Take up of vaccine in 12-15 yo is as low as 10%

[Mellowfruitfulnessy]

Guardian story on the low take-up of vaccines in teens.

I had wondered if this issue would arise. All the (normally intelligent) teens I know are really anti-vax. Strong belief it renders you infertile. I guess a lot of this must be social media influencing.

Hardly anyone showed up for the vax clinic at dc school. In the end they made all the teens talk to the nurse but the take up was almost zero. This must be happening elsewhere too. Any other experiences? It’s really worrying and I don’t know how it will be addressed. I also wonder how it will impact families wanting to travel abroad next year.

They haven't yet offered the vaccine in my DS's secondary school, but around half of his Y8 class currently have Covid, so if it was being offered this week the take-up would be pretty low!

There must be a reason for the slow roll out for booster vaccines and vaccines for 12-15 year olds. Either supply issues, staffing/logistics issues... or the government don't actually want these vaccines to happen and would prefer to head towards natural immunity, which seems to be happening whether it was planned or not!

My son is 12 tomorrow - but he’s missed out on having it at school as their cutoff date was 5th October (as in, child had to be 12 or above y that date). But if he was at a different school he might have got it.

I’m really hoping I’ll be allowed to take him to a walk in hub to get it now they are rolling that out - he wants to have it.

Teens are being vaccinated in walk-in centres where I live (Wales). It was all over social media, how to get there, between which hrs they were vaccinating 12-15 yo etc. Not sure what the uptake is but my DD (15) and her friends went for their jab as soon as they could- they're all keen as far as I know.

Not anti vax at all, waiting to get the opportunity. Locally the vaccine programme was due to visit school then delayed. Lots of sons and friends keen and waiting for it.

@noblegiraffe

Bollocks misleading stats.

Take-up of the vaccine in my school and my DS's school is zero. Why? Because they've cancelled the vaccine due to staff shortages.

The Guardian should get off its journalistic arse and ask how many teens have even been offered the jab.

Exactly.

My experience of teens (having got 2 and one just out of teenhood) is that they're very keen to get it done because they see it as a step back to being able to get back towards normal.
Even my needle phobic teen who was dramatically tearful at the thought managed to go in and get her first, and is very keen that I book her second once she's turned 18yo.

As of the above though, the school one has just been cancelled because of lack of un-ill staff coming in to do it.
Another school they came to do them but only bought about 50% of the supplies they needed. Another friend tells me that her dc's form only 8 hadn't had covid in the last month so couldn't have the jab.

I don't think it's reluctance among teens that's the issue.

If they'd actually make the vaccine available in our area I think they'd have a pretty good take up rate. The current figures are low because the school roll out has unfortunately been very very slow and many teens are still waiting.

I'm relieved we will soon be able to go to a vaccination clinic instead. I'm sure teen vaccination rates will increase a lot when they can actually get booked in.

A low uptake wouldn’t surprise me. I might not have bothered having it if they were only going to give me one dose.

Take up high at my kids school, they all got jabbed yesterday and today,

DD said everyone had it in her class, apart from the ones at home with covid...

My daughter’s class had it yesterday. About 7 out of 25 didn’t have it. The reason was generally that they had already had COVID.

There are the big issues of insufficient immunisation teams to roll out across schools, students/families not having access to tech to be able to complete the online consent form, and pupils not being eligible due to having had covid recently and being advised to wait a month until they're vaccinated (my DS falls into this bracket, desperate to be vacc'd but has to wait.)
Seems this age group will be able to attend a walk-in or appointment very soon and we'll see numbers rise.

I'm involved in delivery of vaccine in schools. Take up has really surprised me. It has varied between 30 - 65% ish. Fairly high. Certainly not as low as Guardian is reporting.

That’s very misleading
No schools in our area have started yet. We’ve filled in the permission slips but no date for jabs yet

Lots of students booked into catch up clinics as not yet 28 days clear since positive PCR so overall figures will be higher.

If they have had covid, they don't need the vaccine as will have strong natural immunity.

Absolutely no sign of vaccine programme at our secondary (West Mids) so I agree a totally misleading story.

I stand corrected when I said there didn't seem to be any sign of Covid jab visits where we live. it looks as if the school vaccine team did visit A school for a day and didn't finish jabbing (so that might have been

Would be good to see your source here OP. The Guardian's fairly easy to link to, and not behind a paywall.

Nothing even remotely like this on the Guardian's current newsfeed, @mnhq - Just saying

I have a 12 year old son, and received a link to book his vaccination at a clinic. Two hours later, no slots left. The problem is very very slow rollout and very very high demand.

@soredust that’s not entirely true. Some people have shown to be lacking in immunity after catching covid, it can vary from person to person.

@Barbie222

Nothing even remotely like this on the Guardian's current newsfeed, *@mnhq* - Just saying

I have a 12 year old son, and received a link to book his vaccination at a clinic. Two hours later, no slots left. The problem is very very slow rollout and very very high demand.

I definitely saw it too. There was a link in the live update feed and for a while they had it as a headline on the website. I actually tried to contact them as I thought it was misleading.

You are right though, they have changed the story today and are now focusing on allowing 12-16 year olds in England access to walk-in centres in line with Scotland and Wales.

The vaccination team came into our school last week. A high numbers of pupils had caught covid in the preceding two weeks so couldn't have the vaccine.

Not quite sure what happened as our school (in fairness) is usually organised but having completed an online form consenting to the vaccine, I received one by email 10 minutes before my son was being vaccinated. Luckily I saw it, had an Apple Pencil to hand and managed to return it completed in time. I suspect this further reduced the take up.

Agree they should extend 12-15 vaccinations to walk in clinics - and also allow parents to consent to a second vaccination as I think the travel exemptions might encourage higher take up as one vaccine is no man's land as far as European travel restrictions for over 12s are concerned (understand the higher risk of myocarditis on the second but it's still a choice parents could have)

Take up in the school I work in was 65% of eligible students.