Is there any point in vaccinating five to 11-year-olds against Covid? For months the policy across the UK was not to do this, on the grounds that few children suffered anything other than mild symptoms — so the possible side effects were not worth the risk. The Pfizer jab, which has formed the mainstay of vaccinations among the under-forties in Britain, has been linked with cases of inflammation of the heart muscle. However, this was mostly mild in patients affected — while the risk of inflammation was found to be less than a quarter compared with the same condition following a Covid infection.
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation yesterday advised that children aged five to 11 should be offered two doses of the Pfizer vaccine, at least 12 weeks apart. The dose will be a third of the amount offered to over-12s. Its reasoning was that it could protect against a future wave of Covid, perhaps involving a strain more virulent than Omicron. The JCVI calculated that vaccinating this age group could, in the event of a future strain more severe than Omicron, prevent 98 hospitalisations and three ICU admissions per million children. To put it another way, 10,300 children would have to be vaccinated to prevent a single hospital admission and 340,000 to prevent one ICU admission.
However, the JCVI also notes that 85 per cent of children are now believed to have natural immunity. Half of these cases are believed to have involved the Omicron variant. As the JCVI notes, there is some evidence to suggest that naturally acquired infection is more durable than that gained through vaccination.
The other consideration is whether parents will agree to have their young children vaccinated, given the low risk Covid poses to them. Take-up among older children has not been as good as was hoped. Government figures show that just 20.9 per cent of boys and 21.1 per cent of girls aged 12 to 15 have so far had two doses of vaccine. On top of this, families have encountered problems when trying to travel abroad with unvaccinated children. This resulted in Spain lifting its requirement for over-12s to be vaccinated to enter the country last week. Vaccination policy shouldn’t really be driven by concerns over family holidays — but it may be that many children end up being vaccinated for the wrong reasons.
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