Mancunian children as young as 16 are to be offered Covid vaccines produced by Pfizer and Moderna – though, notably, not by AstraZeneca – as local authorities launch a “preventive vaccine plan” due to fears about the Indian variant. This decision has been made in spite of the advice given by Professor Adam Finn, a member of the Government’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, that children shouldn’t be vaccinated because of the “side effects”. The Sun has the story.
David Regan, Manchester’s Director of Public Health, said the city was in a “race against time” to tackle the new variant – which is more transmissible than other strains. [Is it? Note that the article later acknowledges there is no evidence for this.]
Pfizer and Moderna vaccines will be offered to people aged 18 and over in target wards, while 17 and 16 year-olds from eligible households will also get the jab call.
The wards involved in the accelerated vaccine rollout are Ardwick, Crumpsall, Cheetham, Moss Side, Levenshulme, Longsight, Rusholme, and Whalley Range.
These areas have populations of more than half black, Asian, and minority-ethnic residents, with many people living in multi-generational households.
Across the rest of England, people aged 32 and 33 can now book their vaccine appointment as the age limit dropped once more…
A total of 49 cases of the new strain have been identified – but there is no evidence to show that it is more transmissible or resistant to vaccines, health chiefs said…
Extra testing and tracing is being carried out while the “strange combination of mutations” continues to be probed.
Downing Street said yesterday that the variant is being monitored and stressed “we won’t hesitate to put in measures that we think are necessary to try and tackle the transmission of any variants”.
Worth reading in full.
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