12 Year-Olds to Be Given Covid Vaccines from September

Children as young as 12 will be given Covid vaccines when they return to school after summer, according to leaked “core planning” documents. Even younger children could be vaccinated shortly afterwards, with Oxford University’s ongoing child vaccine study testing the AstraZeneca jab on 300 children aged six to 17. The Government reportedly wants to vaccinate the young to help the nation avoid a third wave of Covid infections. MailOnline has the story.

Children as young as 12 will get their coronavirus vaccines from September as the Government tries to avoid a third wave, reports say…
There are also reportedly plans for Britons over 50 to be given booster jabs in the autumn amid fears over Covid variants sweeping Europe…
A source told the Sun: “Plans are in place to vaccinate children aged 12 upwards, and senior Government officials have been briefed.
“Though controversial, it is deemed necessary to stop the U.K. regressing in its remarkable fight against Covid.”
Health officials are also said to be looking into jabbing children as young as five from July in a “worst-case scenario”.
The leaked report shows the Government’s contingency plan if the roadmap out of lockdown this summer leads to a surge in variants…
The Department of Health said no decision has been taken, adding: “We will be guided by experts once clinical trials have concluded.”

This comes in spite of the low risk presented by Covid to young people (as few as 14 people under the age of 20 in England and Wales have died of Covid in 2021) and the fact that a large proportion of those who are vulnerable – whom the Government fears young people could infect – have been vaccinated. (More than 11 million people have now received two doses of a Covid vaccine and 95% of over-50s have been vaccinated.)

Last month, Sean O’Grady, the Associate Editor of the Independent, said that the vaccination of the young should be mandatory.

I would vaccinate every child old enough to receive it, as a condition of receiving a state education. …
Of course, in the end, we do not want to live in a country where gangs of officials grab unvaccinated children or adults, wrestle them to the ground and forcibly inject them. But we do want to live in a country where rights are balanced by responsibilities, and where mutual obligations need to be fulfilled.
Incentives and penalties, taxes and fines, court orders and conditions of employment – restrictions on liberty – are commonplace in our daily lives; for the protection of the community as a whole. If we want to drive the wrong way down a motorway, then there are legal consequences for doing so.

Meanwhile, the reported risk of suffering from blood clots after taking the AstraZeneca vaccine (Britain’s primary Covid vaccine) has doubled in a fortnight, according to new data from the Medical Healthcare products and Regulatory Agency. The European Medicines Agency has also said that a warning about blood clots should be added to labels for the Johnson & Johnson Covid vaccine, which is likely to be approved for use in the U.K. in the coming weeks. Dr Alan Mordue, a retired public health consultant, recently wrote for Lockdown Sceptics that “the potential benefits [of vaccination] may not be justified by the potential risks” for people under the age of 50.

The Mail’s report is worth reading in full.