12 to 15 year olds will be offered a vaccination

Thursday 23 September 2021

The Bailiwick’s 12 to 15 year olds will be offered a single dose of a COVID-19 vaccine in line with the UK and other Crown Dependencies.

The Committee of Health and Social Care have considered the health and wider social benefits and will be offering a single dose of the Pfizer vaccine to this cohort.

Director of Public Health, Dr Nicola Brink, announced the vaccination of 12 to 15 year olds at Tuesday’s COVID-19 briefing, and stated how they would be accommodating the younger cohort.

“We have elected not to vaccinate within the school environment, but to run bespoke clinics, or run the service through the community vaccination centre to give young people a chance … to come in, have discussions, talk about the pros and cons.”

Advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) concluded that whilst there was an overall advantage for vaccination in this cohort, it did not meet their usual threshold for recommending population based vaccination solely on health grounds. However, they did not feel that the risk of vaccination in this cohort was greater than the benefit.

Yesterday I wrote to the chair of the CCA to ask for full details behind the decision by them to offer Covid vaccinations to 12 to 15 year olds, contrary to the advice of the JCVI.

— Yvonne Burford (@YvonneBurford) September 22, 2021

Pictured: Deputies are enquiring about the decision to vaccinate the cohort without the backing of JCVI.

Back in June, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) concluded that the Pfizer vaccine was safe for this age cohort.

Other considerations included the level of disruption to the education of young people and the marginal health benefits, this helped the agency reach the decision to offer the vaccine to those aged 12 to 15. 

Deputy Al Brouard, President of the Committee for Health and Social Care explained that invitation letters will be sent out in due course with all relevant information for households to discuss the vaccine offer: “We want to support the discussions that will take place between many parents and their children about whether they wish to take up the vaccine offer.

“This is very important as we want to support the decision-making process for children, young people and their parents in an open and transparent manner.”

“We always like to work with parents,” Dr Brink said. “But we also have a way, something called Gillick competency, where we assess the competency of a child, but in the overwhelming majority of cases we will be working with parents.”

Individuals are reminded not to book appointments prior to receiving a letter.