Thursday, September 16, 2021 - 09:29

The Government considers that the Opposition’s irresponsible reaction to the vaccination against COVID-19 of 12-15 year olds in the United Kingdom and Gibraltar is in the stone age. This is even more so after the move has been sanctioned by the Chief Medical Officers of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and when such vaccination has been happening elsewhere for months.

The approach that the Opposition have adopted on this issue suggests that they are more concerned with sowing the seeds of doubt and pandering to the anti-vax lobby than in protecting the health of our children and those who come into contact with them.
There are sound scientific, health and educational reasons behind the vaccination of 12-15 year olds.
The first mass campaign to vaccinate children against COVID-19 in the United States officially begun in May after the federal government there recommended administering the PfizerBioNTech vaccine to 12-15 year olds. This made some 17 million children eligible for the vaccine 600,000 of whom received it in the first week of the campaign.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) also approved the vaccination of 12-15 year olds using the same vaccine in May of this year. This followed a study of 2259 children in this age group which found that their immune response was comparable to those in the 16-25 cohort. None of the children who received the actual vaccine developed COVID-19. The following month, in April, the EMA approved the Moderna vaccine for 12-17 year old children as well.