A Government minister today refused to be drawn on whether parental consent will be required for the No10's impending plan to vaccinate 1.5million teenagers against Covid.
Health chiefs are now set to recommend all 16 and 17 year olds get jabs, marking a dramatic U-turn — given just two weeks ago the same expert panel advised against doing so.
Boris Johnson is expected to accept the guidance immediately, paving the way for the roll-out to begin later this month. Jabs could be administered in schools.
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), which advises No10, last month ruled only over-12s with serious underlying health conditions or who live with a vulnerable adult should get jabs.
The panel, made up of the country's top experts, warned the 'minimal health benefits' did not outweigh the risks to justify vaccinating all children. It adopted a 'precautionary approach' because of a rare link between the jab and a cases of heart conditions called myocarditis and pericarditis.
But officials are keen to push the immunisation drive on to more youngsters in order to prevent an autumn surge in infections when they return to schools in September.
Under-18s wanting the jab would have to provide proof of parental consent, Whitehall sources claimed last night as details of the move began to leak after Nicola Sturgeon hinted at the change.
However, universities minister Michelle Donelan would not confirm that would be the case when quizzed about the move this morning, merely saying advice from the JCVI was 'imminent'.
Asked whether parents would be consulted on whether they wanted their children to receive a vaccine, she told Sky News she would not 'preempt' the announcement.
Ms Donelan: 'As a representative of the Government I am waiting for the JCVI update on this which could be today but it is very imminent. As I have already said I am not going to preempt a policy announcement.'
Questions are now being asked as to what has prompted the sudden change in advice from the panel, which just two weeks ago said it was 'not currently advising routine vaccination of children'.
Sources close to the JCVI, according to The Times, warned of political attempts to 'bounce' the group into making the decision. But other insiders claimed the decision was based on fresh evidence that makes the case for jabbing all over-16s, suggesting the risk of myocarditis among teenagers may be lower than feared.
Ms Donelan insisted the decision was 'not based on political pressure'.
She also claimed the Government was considering 'all options for incentivising' younger people to get the Covid vaccine, with ministers hoping to encourage hesitant youngsters into centres with the promise of cut-price taxis and takeaways. Cash bribes have also not been ruled out.
Schools unions today backed the move, saying anything that reassures young people that they are being treated like adults 'has to be welcomed'. But they insisted schools should have no responsibility for promoting, enforcing or policing inoculation uptake.
Experts today slammed the plan to extend the roll-out to teenagers who are 'at low risk of serious disease' and are building up natural immunity through exposure to the virus.
Professor David Livermore, an infectious disease researcher at the University of East Anglia, told MailOnline limited vaccine supplies would be better used vaccinating the elderly in countries which are lagging massively behind the UK.
Top graph: Data from June 24 to July 12 (red bars), gathered by Imperial researchers as part of the REACT study, shows that infection rates were highest in five to 24-year-olds. Half of all Covid infections were in this group, despite them making up just 25 per cent of the population. Nine times more children aged 13 to 17 tested positive in the most recent testing window compared to rates from May 20 to June 7 (yellow bars). Bottom graph: Figures also show that infection rates were highest in London, where 0.94 per cent tested positive by July 12, up from just 0.13 per cent in the previous study period
Graph shows the proportion of people in each age group who had received one Covid jab (light blue) and who were fully immunised (dark blue)
What is the evidence on vaccinating children?
Covid is very rarely severe or fatal in children.
Just one in 500,000 under-18s are at risk of dying from the virus, researchers at leading UK universities found this month.
That means any vaccine given to youngsters has to be very safe because the risk-harm benefit from them catching the virus is so low.
The fact that older people have a higher chance of being hospitalised or dying from the virus outweighs the side effects the vaccine could have on them.
But as children are less affected from the virus, some side effects could be riskier to them than the virus itself.
Since the vaccine rollout has been expanded to children in countries including the US and Israel, there have been reports of an extremely rare reported cases of myocarditis and pericarditis.
Myocarditis is inflammation of the heart muscle, while pericarditis is when the protective layer around the heart gets inflamed.
There are no specific causes of the conditions but they are usually triggered by a virus.
The UK is expected to wait for more data from clinical trials and other countries immunising children before making a decision to offer all youngster the jab.
The US, Israel and France are already giving the vaccine to over-12s.
In addition to safety concerns, children's bodies and immune systems behave differently, meaning they might have different treatment needs.
Youngsters may need different doses or needle sizes depending on their height, weight and age - which is why most children are only vaccinated after safety has been well-documented in the adult population.
It comes as:
- Ministers get set to axe the controversial 'amber-plus' list, meaning holidays to Spain are back on for thousands of British sunseekers;
- Boris Johnson snubbed Nicola Sturgeon's offer to meet her when he visits Scotland this week;
- The Scottish government offers to pay people £50,000 to set up homes, families and businesses on its most remote and beautiful islands;
- UK's daily Covid cases fell to another five-week low of 21,691 in just a 7 per cent drop on last week - as hospital admissions dip by 15 per cent;
- Study finds Covid survivors who were hooked up to a ventilator in hospital lost up to seven IQ points;
- Nicola Sturgeon is accused of 'clinging on to large parts of people's lives' by keeping lockdown laws on masks and mass events 'indefinitely';
- British tourists queue for two hours to get through passport control after three hours of Covid admin to board flight at Malaga.
Asked why the Government has had a change of heart on moving the roll-out on to children this morning, Ms Donelan said: 'We haven't announced that.'
She added: 'What we're doing is waiting for the JCVI announcement.
'At every stage throughout the pandemic we've adopted their advice on this.
'They are the experts of course when we're determining the vaccine rollout and we'll await their imminent announcement shortly.
'We are awaiting the feedback from the JCVI and then we will update accordingly, so we haven't actually had a change of heart, there's been no policy announcement.'
Ms Donelan said the advice was expected 'imminently' and denied was based on 'political pressure'.
Scientists are divided over the hugely controversial topic of vaccinating children, given their tiny risk of dying or falling seriously ill.
A quarter of children aged 12 to 15 in the US have received two doses, while a third have received one dose.
Other countries, including Israel, Italy, France and Germany are making progress in this age group - and Israel has even approved the vaccine for vulnerable 5 to 11-year-olds.
But one expert today described any decision to extend the rollout to teenagers in Britain as being 'pretty pointless'.
Professor Livermore told MailOnline: 'Sixteen to 17-year-olds are at low risk of serious disease and, through exposure, are developing immunity anyway.
'We do not know if vaccine-induced or infection-induced immunity will prove the longer lasting, and to the better contributor to herd immunity.
'Given this I can see no good reason to prioritise vaccinating them.
'Limited vaccine supplies would be far better used in countries and regions with large vulnerable elderly populations who presently remain unvaccinated — Australia, much of South East Asia and Latin America, as well as Africa.'
But others claim the evidence suggests vaccinating children would have beneficial 'knock on effects' on the adult population.
Professor Steven Riley, of Imperial College London and co-author of the React study which has been tracking the outbreak, said that the latest results from the study would 'support' extending the vaccination programme to 16 and 17 year olds.
Maisie Ayres, aged 18, receives a Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at an NHS Vaccination Clinic at Tottenham Hotspur's stadium in north London last month
Data from the study also revealed that two doses of a vaccine are 49 per cent effective at preventing asymptomatic infection, a marked decline compared to other estimates. But the protection offered by the vaccines rises to 59 per cent against symptomatic cases, researchers said
Positive PCR test samples taken as part of the REACT study closely follow the waves of the pandemic
The graph shows the proportion of positive Covid swabs taken as part of the REACT trial that sequencing identified as the Delta variant
The graph shows the Ct value in infected people aged 18 to 64 who had not been vaccinated (red line) compared to double jabbed Brits (blue line). Each graph shows that those not protected against Covid had lower Ct levels, which are associated with higher amounts of the virus in their test sample and is usually linked with a more severe infection
Schools should not be responsible for promoting or policing jabs for pupils, union says
Schools should not have any responsibility for promoting, enforcing or policing vaccination of pupils, a union has said.
School leaders' union NAHT said UK policy on jabs for children should be led by clinicians.
Paul Whiteman, NAHT general secretary, said: 'The debate about whether or not to vaccinate older children has been raging for many weeks. NAHT has always said that UK policy on child vaccination should be led by clinicians.
'To the extent that any such policy is controversial it is clear that schools should not carry any responsibility for vaccination promotion, enforcement or policing.'
He said Covid remains a worry for school leaders, given the large numbers of absences related to the virus last term.
A record 1.13million children in England were out of school for Covid related reasons towards the end of term, recent Government figures showed.
The figures included 994,000 children self-isolating due to a possible contact with a Covid case, 48,000 pupils with a confirmed case of coronavirus, and 33,300 with a suspected case.
A further 50,700 pupils were off as a result of school closures due to Covid-related reasons, the Department for Education (DfE) statistics showed.
Mr Whiteman said: 'Regardless of the extent that young people might suffer directly from the virus, the large numbers of pupils absent from school at the end of last term showed that Covid still has the power to affect the quality and continuity of the education they receive.
'That is a continuing worry for school leaders.
'Pupils will return to schools next month, and the Government needs to take every possible step to prevent transmission of the virus amongst people in school communities, no matter their age.
'As ever, it will be a matter of public confidence in whatever these measures are deemed to be, so the Government also has a duty to communicate carefully and clearly in order to avoid any more unnecessary disruption and missed education for pupils.'
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), said extending the jabs rollout would reduce disruption to schooling.
He told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: 'Anything that gives the reassurance to young people that they are being treated in the way that the adult population is and that their education won't be disrupted to the extent it has been – that has to be welcomed.
'I'm sure many parents, with their youngsters, will think at last we're starting to give a real sense of priority to young people's education.'
He said generally he thinks 'young people feel they've been let down educationally'.
He added: 'If this is one way we can get rid of that disruption I think we will see a great sense of a lot of young people, not all, but a lot of young people thinking, 'Actually, I'm going to have the vaccine, just like my mum or my dad has'.'
Mr Barton suggested vaccination for younger pupils could also be considered.
He told LBC: 'Our data would support that in that we'd expect there to be a really good knock-on effect from extending the vaccinations for that group.'
The study — based on random swab-testing of tens of thousands of people across England — found a 'lot of transmission' among secondary school-aged children.
The Pfizer vaccine is approved for children aged 12-and-over.
Professor Riley added: 'If that could be prioritised that would also reduce transmission'
'What we should probably think about is September, October, November: how much immunity can we have in order to hopefully keep prevalence going down, or if prevalence does start to go up a little bit for it to be as slowly as possible, so there is justification in extending those vaccinations down.
'But we have to balance against the other needs for the vaccine as well.'
Whitehall sources pointed to polling suggesting a large majority of parents support the vaccination of children.
Jabs could be administered in schools but Education Secretary Gavin Williamson is expected to push for GP surgeries and NHS hubs to be used.
Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon told MSPs yesterday: 'I am hoping, possibly veering towards expecting, updated advice from the JCVI literally in the next day or so.'
A major government-funded study found that vaccinating all over-12s could 'substantially reduce transmission potential in the autumn when levels of social mixing increase.'
Run by Imperial College London, the React Study found the summer wave had been driven by infections among youngsters aged 12 to 24. It said vaccinating children could have 'knock on benefits across the whole population'.
Because Covid poses little direct risk to children, scientists have been nervous about recommending vaccination if there is even the tiniest risk of negative side effects.
Chief medical officer Chris Whitty said in June that safety would always be the paramount factor. But he said policy makers also had to consider the 'wider question around the effects on children's education'.
More than 1.1million children were forced to stay at home in the last week of the summer term because of outbreaks in schools.
Ministers are also concerned that, with some countries demanding proof of vaccination for all over-12s, families could find their travel options limited.
The offer of a Covid jab was extended to all over-18s in mid-June. But, to the frustration of ministers, three million under-30s have yet to take it up.
The React study, which is based on random testing of nearly 100,000 people, found that half of all infections are in those aged five to 24 despite them only making up one in four of the population.
It warned that the rampant spread of the virus in the young means the recent decline in cases could reverse when schools reopen in September.
The study concluded that vaccinating more children could 'substantially reduce transmission' and have 'knock on bene - fits across the whole population'.
Ms Sturgeon added: 'I very much hope that that expectation will prove to be the case. I am hoping, but this is the JCVI's advice, that they will recommend further vaccination of people in the 12 to 18-year-old age group.
'But I'm particularly hopeful that we will see some updated recommendations in relation, as a priority as the first part of this, for 16 and 17-year-olds.'
Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said: 'With the JCVI apparently about to give the green light to vaccinating 16 year olds, ministers need to ensure plans are in place to roll out this vital next stage of vaccination while ensuring parents have all the facts and information they need.'
A spokesperson for the department of health and social care (DHSC) said it continues to keep jabs for children under review and will be guided by the JCVI's advice.
Vaccinator Suzanne Pozzo gives a vaccine to Omar Khalifa in a pop up tent at a drop in clinic outside Stenhousemuir Football Ground after Scotland moved to Level 0 of the country's five-tier coronavirus restrictions system
Britain's daily Covid cases fall to a five-week low: UK records 21,952 positive tests in 12% weekly drop - as deaths jump to 24
Britain's daily Covid cases today fell to a five-week low, with just 21,952 positive tests recorded across the nation.
Department of Health figures show the number of infections is 12 per cent down on last week, as the third wave continues to slow.
Meanwhile, deaths – which lag several weeks behind cases – continued to rise. Another 24 victims were posted today, compared to 14 last Monday.
The most recent data on hospital admissions shows 911 people were admitted last Tuesday, down from 926 seven days earlier.
Covid cases are lower today than they have been since June 29, according to the official figures released today.
But the number of virus tests conducted also fell to their lowest levels since June 26, suggesting there are cases that have not been picked up.
The new figures follow data published on Friday, which suggested cases are still on the rise and as many as one in 65 people in England are currently infected.
Some experts think fewer people are coming forward for Covid tests to avoid isolation.
The figures also signal a slow in the week-on-week drop in infections, with cases dropping by 12 per cent on seven days earlier.
Last Monday, cases had dropped by 37.5 per cent compared to the previous week.
Meanwhile, there were just 24 deaths within 28 days of a positive Covid tests were recorded, down from 65 yesterday, but an increase of 71.4 per cent compared to last Monday.
Covid death figures released on Monday often lag, due to a delay in recording deaths over the weekend.
It comes after Ms Sturgeon was yesterday accused of 'clinging on to large parts of people's lives' as she revealed lockdown will officially end next week - but some laws will remain in place indefinitely.
The First Minister confirmed Scotland would exit Level 0, ending social distancing and limits in the size of social gatherings, on August 9.
But she said it was too early to declare freedom from Covid as she confirmed face coverings will still be required by law indoors and large events with capacities of more than 2,000 inside and 5,000 outside will have to gain special permission to take place.
Schoolchildren will also have to wear mask in lessons and socially distance in schools for six weeks from September.
But in a move that will heap pressure on Boris Johnson amid the English 'pingdemic', self-isolation requirements will be dropped if someone passes a PCR test from Monday, a week before the quarantine requirement ends in England.
Announcing that face coverings would remain mandatory the First Minister said it was 'premature' to suggest the pandemic had been beaten.
She also raised the spectre of some restrictions returning in winter, saying she could not rule it out.
But Scots Tory leader Douglas Ross accused her of 'moving the goalposts' by keeping masks and other measures in place.
'There are some welcome steps in the right direction but these ongoing restrictions will hold Scotland back,' he said.
'We are beyond Level 0, at Level -1 or -2 and still the Government is clinging on to large parts of people's lives.'
Meanwhile, Boris Johnson has snubbed an invitation from Ms Sturgeon to meet during his visit to Scotland this week.
The First Minister had invited Mr Johnson to meet at her official Edinburgh residence, Bute House, to discuss the UK's recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.
However, the Prime Minister has replied to Ms Sturgeon in a letter - posted on Twitter by a Sky News journalist - instead aiming to focus on wider discussions at a later point.
In his letter, the Prime Minister said: 'As I noted when we last met, I am keen to arrange an in-person meeting with you and the other first ministers and deputy first minister to build on the constructive discussions we had earlier this summer.
'We agreed then that we should establish a structured forum for ongoing engagement between the Government and the devolved administrations to deliver tangible outcomes in the interest of people throughout the UK.
'There is much for us to discuss as all parts of the UK work together on our shared priority of recovering from the pandemic.
'I understand our officials have made good progress on the details of this since we last spoke.'
Mr Johnson added: 'I am particularly keen that we work closely together on the vaccination booster campaign this autumn which will be crucial as we continue to tackle the pandemic.
'The UK Government has procured millions of vaccines for the entire United Kingdom and we look forward to working with the Scottish Government as we roll out booster jabs in line with JCVI's advice.
'The UK Government is working closely with the devolved Scottish Government on a variety of different issues.
'I know that you have been meeting regularly with the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Michael Gove, but I look forward to meeting with you soon and working together in the interests of people in all parts of our country.'
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMihAFodHRwczovL3d3dy5kYWlseW1haWwuY28udWsvbmV3cy9hcnRpY2xlLTk4NTk1ODMvQ292aWQtMTktVUstTWluaXN0ZXItcmVmdXNlcy1zYXktcGFyZW50YWwtY29uc2VudC1uZWVkZWQtdGVlbmFnZS12YWNjaW5lLXBsYW5zLmh0bWzSAYgBaHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZGFpbHltYWlsLmNvLnVrL25ld3MvYXJ0aWNsZS05ODU5NTgzL2FtcC9Db3ZpZC0xOS1VSy1NaW5pc3Rlci1yZWZ1c2VzLXNheS1wYXJlbnRhbC1jb25zZW50LW5lZWRlZC10ZWVuYWdlLXZhY2NpbmUtcGxhbnMuaHRtbA?oc=5
