UK 'past the point' where vaccinating young children will do any good

[WineGetsMeThroughIt]

Sharing this here (from Sky News) as I know there's been a fair few posts regarding child vaccination recently.

Will be interesting to see if other countries adopt the same stance and remove vaccine requirements from children at least.

I’m sceptical of this person’s credentials/motives purely because they say that vaccines haven’t done much to prevent school disruption in older children and yet since secondary kids have been eligible for vaccination, infection rates for secondary have been lower than that for primary (who are unvaccinated). Before the vaccines, secondary infection rates were always higher than primary.

Well neither of my children have had covid once never mind multiple times and have both now had 2 vaccines

@noblegiraffe

Perhaps. But I would also beg to differ that with younger children in nursery and primary school they are much more likely to be mixing and in a position where they are able to spread and pass covid. They're much more likely to be playing together and having direct contact in the classroom and on the playground than older children. Younger ones sharing toys and school supplies, play equipment, touching each other during play, etc than older children in a secondary school setting who were more aware and cautious of covid and required to wear masks.

Also, could lower infections in older children not just be because of the previous peaks in their age group - so a lot of them had it earlier and have better immunity because of previous infection?

The disruption to schooling is not really because of the children having Covid, but because of the self-isolation rules. It has just gone around my DD's year 1 class and all of them, had symptoms for one or two days, if at all, then were fine. Some of them would have perhaps missed a couple of days of school, but none of them 5-7.

And also, being triple-vaccinated has not prevented the majority of us parents from catching it...

wine but as I said, regardless of young children sharing toys, older children wearing masks, whatever, secondary school infection rates have been higher than primary school infection rates for the whole pandemic and this only changed when the school vaccination programme kicked in.

You can see this clearly in the infection rate graph from last Oct/Nov when they were vaccinating. What’s also notable is how much lower the infection rate is in Y12+ than both primary and secondary, as they were vaccinated earlier.

@dementedpixie

Well neither of my children have had covid once never mind multiple times and have both now had 2 vaccines

And neither of my children have had covid, despite no vaccines...

It seems they are getting rid of the self isolation at the end of this month (legally).
I don't know what this will mean for schools though.
My 7 year old is vurnable (autism) and has his first jab on Saturday, I'm still on the fence about it.

The disruption to schooling is not really because of the children having Covid, but because of the self-isolation rules.

This.

The disruption to schooling is not really because of the children having Covid, but because of the self-isolation rule

Yes definitely.

Ds3 (4) missed 8 school days because he kept testing positive right up to day 10. He was fit for school by day 3.

I know lots similar, primary kids running and jumping around being driven nuts by being kept inside for a week when they're fine.

I know lots similar, primary kids running and jumping around being driven nuts by being kept inside for a week when they're fine.

Not only that, but often parents can't go to work either if they need to watch over their kids at home...!

@Karma1981 I thought it was going to be the end of March?

I would absolutely let six year old dd have the covid vaccine should it become available although at this point I’d rather wait for newer vaccines based on a newer strain. I imagine the UK will have to be swayed by the rest of the world somewhat, if other countries take a different view and require childhood vaccinations for travel then there’ll be pressure for it to be available here. I’m not sure that we’re at the stage it would be morally appropriate to approve it for private purchase when some countries still require vaccines to cover the population.

[quote Cornettoninja]@Karma1981 I thought it was going to be the end of March?

I would absolutely let six year old dd have the covid vaccine should it become available although at this point I’d rather wait for newer vaccines based on a newer strain. I imagine the UK will have to be swayed by the rest of the world somewhat, if other countries take a different view and require childhood vaccinations for travel then there’ll be pressure for it to be available here. I’m not sure that we’re at the stage it would be morally appropriate to approve it for private purchase when some countries still require vaccines to cover the population.[/quote]
The gov have announced that if things don't change regarding covid then they will scrap all covid restrictions this month.

Thanks @Karma1981, I’ll keep an eye on that

@noblegiraffe

wine but as I said, regardless of young children sharing toys, older children wearing masks, whatever, secondary school infection rates have been higher than primary school infection rates for the whole pandemic and this only changed when the school vaccination programme kicked in.

You can see this clearly in the infection rate graph from last Oct/Nov when they were vaccinating. What’s also notable is how much lower the infection rate is in Y12+ than both primary and secondary, as they were vaccinated earlier.

At our secondary school covid was rife in October so pretty much everyone has had it, I think that's the reason for the dip in cases, nothing to do with vaccination. Vaccination has hardly helped with lowering cases in adults has it?! More transmission than ever.

If vaccination didn't help lower cases you wouldn't be able to easily spot the unvaccinated age group in this series of graphs.

But back to the OP, we are past the point of vaccinating that age group when that age group get Covid less severely than triple-vaccinated adults and, in less than a month, won't need to miss school for what is, in the vast majority of cases, a very mild, short-lived illness.

But the person claiming that also claims that vaccines didn't do much to prevent school disruption in the face of those graphs therefore should be treated with suspicion.

I really hope this is the case that there is a shift. The risk benefit profile is not in favour for primary age children. I will not vaccinate my primary age children. I am tripple jabbed as at my age is makes sense but not for that age group. As per the JBC original view!!

If vaccines made no difference in schools I'd be interested to know why the 6th form rates dropped so dramatically while 12-15yos rose.

You can still pass the virus on when vaccinated so it is pointless!

Perhaps the rates have dropped in teens because most of them have already had it?

I know that you can get it more than once, anecdotally my teen who had original Covid in 2020 didn't catch it when the rest of the household had it recently.

Well, it seems a rather large coincidence that infection rates dropped when the vaccine was rolled out in that age group, in the same way as infection rates dropped in other age groups when it was rolled out to them.

Prior infection doesn't seem to have helped primary rates in the same way.

A certain group of people are very keen to suggest that the vaccine is useless, so when people make claims in that direction in the face of the evidence, one has to wonder why.