Thanks
mibbe! Yes, I'm back to normal now, and I can smell and taste again - yay!
On the JCVI, yes possibly, though frankly, only looking at the risk vs benefit (medically) for children sounds like it should be exactly the JCVI remit! It's not their job to decide education policy based on that, or how important it is that education for many isn't disrupted vs a small number of children being hospitalised with heart issues vs some children getting long covid. That is purely on the SG to reach a decision as to how they are going to act on the advice that the medical risk to children of covid (in terms of hospitalisations and deaths - which is the only thing the vaccine programme aims to prevent... anything else is a bonus) is outweighed by the risk of the vaccine. England isn't carrying on with class isolation due to contacts at the moment, with the same advice on vaccines, so it's not a foregone conclusion that no vaccination = need to keep bubbles.
Admittedly, the media reports did suggest that the JCVI were straying into that a bit, but looking at their actual press release, they said... "Until more safety data is available and has been evaluated, a precautionary approach is preferred.... Based on the fact that previously well children, if they do get COVID-19, are likely to have a very mild form of the disease, the health benefits of vaccinating them are small. The benefits of reducing transmission to the wider population from children are also highly uncertain, especially as vaccine uptake is very high in older people who are at highest risk from serious COVID-19 infection. We will keep this advice under review as more safety and effectiveness information becomes available." (my emphasis, given NSs and SJs later requests that they keep it under review!)
If NS is saying they should have considered eg long covid too, that seems to be misunderstanding their purpose and the purpose of the vaccine programme, and passes the buck a bit. And I'm not sure we even know if the vaccine does prevent long covid reliably, given it doesn't prevent transmission nearly as well as it prevents hospitalisation and death?
And I agree on the contact SI for people with recent infection! At the moment, I think once you leave your 10 day SI you're fair game for being a close contact again (even if someone in your house comes down with symptoms on day 11 having been locked in with you for the previous 10 days)! I think the argument is that you can still pass it onto others even if your antibodies mean you don't get ill again. But if double jagged people are going to be let off contact isolation, recently positive people should be too, as the same risk applies. Except recently positive people may not be able to prove they are negative with a pcr test for 90 days... so if that is a condition they impose in Scotland for avoiding SI (as suggested by NS) that could be a problem.