Ministers are considering writing to every 12 to 15-year-old in the country to urge them to get their Covid vaccine.
The letter would be signed by Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi in a bid to improve the slow jab rollout in schools.
So far only 19.8 per cent of that age group has been jabbed.
However, the move has sparked a row within Government over whether writing to children directly would be appropriate.
The letter would be signed by Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi in a bid to improve the slow jab rollout in schools
Whitehall officials have raised concerns that the move would risk undermining parental consent.
Since the rollout was extended to all 12- to 15-year-olds more than a month ago, MPs have warned that parents must be given a final say in whether their child should be vaccinated.
Schools normally send forms to parents seeking permission for pupils to receive a jab.
However, children also have a say and in some cases can override their parents, although the Government has insisted this would only apply ‘very rarely’.
It comes as analysis for The Mail on Sunday shows only a third of 12- to 15-year-olds will be jabbed by December if the rollout continues at the current pace.
Just 564,518 out of 2.8 million 12- to 15-year-olds in England had been vaccinated by last Friday – compared with nearly two thirds of 16- to 18-year-olds.
The jab rollout has averaged just 12,100 of such children a day in the past month.
Failing to significantly speed up kids’ jabs could leave the majority of children in that age group unprotected by Christmas because the vaccine takes 14 days to take full effect.
Last week, the Prime Minister held a meeting with Mr Zahawi, Health Secretary Sajid Javid and Chief of Staff Dan Rosenfield about how to speed up the rollout.
NHS bosses are also scrambling to use half term to vaccinate as many children as possible, with England’s top GP, Dr Nikki Kanani – medical director of primary care for NHS England – making a plea to parents to book their children in by revealing her 13-year-old has received the jab.
Some 2.5 million NHS letters – covering almost the entire age cohort of 12- to 15-year-olds in England – are being sent out from tomorrow to parents and guardians in a blitz aimed at increasing uptake.
It comes after the NHS’s national booking service for Covid jabs opened up for 12- to 15-year-olds.
Dr Kanani, who is also deputy lead for the Covid vaccination programme, said: ‘Millions of parents will be receiving letters from tomorrow inviting their children to get a Covid vaccine through the National Booking Service.
‘This provides an additional way for 12- to 15-year-olds to get their vaccine following the rollout in schools that has seen more than a half million vaccinated.’
She added: ‘The decision to get vaccinated has always been a private choice between a child and their parent or guardian – my 13-year-old son received his vaccine at school on the same day I had my booster dose in a local pharmacy.
‘I would urge families to look at the information together and then book in to give children and their loved ones crucial protection ahead of winter.’ Parents whose children have had the jab will also receive the letter, as it is part of a mass mailing. The NHS says to ignore it.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Secretary of State for Education, Nadhim Zahawi visit the Westbury-on-Trym Church of England Academy in Bristol
The sluggish nature of the campaign contrasts sharply with the situation in Scotland.
When the decision to vaccinate 12- to 15-year-olds was made on September 20, rates were similar in both countries – with 5.7 per cent of that age group jabbed in England, and 5.4 per cent in Scotland.
These youngsters had already been vaccinated because they are clinically vulnerable, or live with someone who is, meaning they fall into a higher priority group.
But in the month since then, Scotland has stormed ahead, having jabbed more than 50 per cent of its 12- to 15-year-olds – a vaccination rate of 3,640 children a day.
Over the same period, England has only managed to shift the dial to just under 20 per cent.
The contrasting campaigns may have contributed to the divergence in Covid case rates in under-15s since early September, when they stood at about 400 a week per 100,000 in both England and Scotland. In England, they have since shot up to more than 800 per 100,000, while in Scotland they have dropped to below 200.
Experts are worried that higher Covid case rates are starting to spill over into older age groups as children bring the virus home to parents and grandparents.
They believe that vaccinating secondary-school pupils is key to controlling the virus this winter, as Covid rates are currently at their highest in teenagers.
A recent modelling study calculated that jabbing all 12- to 15-year-olds could prevent tens of thousands of hospital admissions, mainly of older people, saving thousands of lives. If most of this age group remains unvaccinated, however, these benefits will not materialise.
How much longer can we tolerate anti-vaxxers clogging up the NHS?By David Mellor
Sadly, the pernicious anti-vaxxer movement is helping sustain Covid-19. It’s filling up hospital beds as the latest month’s figures show that two-thirds of the under-50s admitted with the virus are unvaccinated.
The knock-on effect is that the NHS is constrained from treating others desperately ill with conditions such as cancer.
As important as booster jabs are, the priority is still to reach the millions of supposedly adult citizens who have refused the vaccine.
Undaunted by such stories, anti-vaxxers continue to defy medical advice and common sense
It is believed that half of professional footballers haven’t even had a first jab. Refusing the jab is not merely irrational, it’s taking a chance with your life. A gamble where lives are being lost.
There have been tragic examples – such as a 58-year-old Cambridge-educated lawyer who said he hoped he had got the virus because he’d prefer to have the antibodies in his blood than take the jab.
‘I’d rather take my chances with my immune system,’ he added. He did just that – and died.
Undaunted by such stories, anti-vaxxers continue to defy medical advice and common sense.
This leads again to the question that won’t go away: how much longer can we tolerate seeing the NHS clogged up with people who get Covid really badly because they won’t be vaccinated? Is this just a matter for individual choice? Or are the consequences for society too serious to overlook – particularly with the threat of a return of social restrictions for us all, and perhaps even another lockdown.
I acknowledge, having been a Minister for 11 years, that the options are not easy. It’s tempting to suggest that anti-vaxxers should be denied treatment, or treated only at their own expense. This has been seriously suggested in Australia. But I doubt it would work there and certainly won’t work in the UK.
The choice is stark: a vaccine passport system – or disruption, misery and irreparable damage to millions of lives and to the economy
But a vaccine passport might. Why shouldn’t we ban those who refuse the vaccine from visiting places of entertainment or – as Italy has done – from going to work?
I believe it is no exaggeration to say that what anti-vaxxers are doing could be likened to someone running along a street stabbing passers-by at random.
Unpalatable as many will find it, I am convinced that we must act, otherwise there’s a terrible danger we’ll be saddled with unmanageable Covid outbreaks for as far ahead as we can see.
The choice is stark: a vaccine passport system – or disruption, misery and irreparable damage to millions of lives and to the economy.
Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad. Ask any anti-vaxxer.
A group of them were filmed on Tuesday, howling expletives at Michael Gove, as he walked through Westminster. Why?
For the high crime and misdemeanour of supporting the vaccination of people against Covid-19.
This was undoubtedly a public order offence, yet the police did nothing about the altercation (typical).
It didn’t seem to matter that it happened just a few days after the killing of his colleague Sir David Amess.
Gove was left to take his chances without knowing whether they were merely going to shout at him or, so inflamed by the madness on the internet, that one or more of these people would physically assault him.
Take a look at the kind of rubbish promoted online.
Covid has been designed as a means of controlling the population, we are told.
It was caused by the World Health Organisation acting in consort with Big Pharma and Bill Gates. It’s a side effect of 5G mobile telephone upgrades.
Oh, and by the way, those blue disposable masks have been impregnated with asbestos.
The anti-vaxxer world is full of crazed voices.
Piers Corbyn, for example, seems determined to present himself as more of a loony tune than brother Jeremy.
Here’s the gospel according to Piers: ‘Bill Gates wants vaccinations to control you, and to control women’s fertility to reduce the world population.
‘That’s his game, and he’s going to get loads of money of it. You will pay with your money and your life. We say “No”.’
Meanwhile, he distributes leaflets comparing the UK’s covid vaccine rollout to Auschwitz.
His Indian equivalent, Swami Chakrapani, claims you don’t need a vaccine because applying cow dung to your body will do the trick.
Maybe coronavirus would be better.
Faced with such nonsense, you might reasonably think the best
