A professor has said we are now "past the point" where Covid-19 jabs would make much difference to children aged over five.
Professor Paul Hunter, professor in medicine at the University of East Anglia, told the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I would lean against offering it to this age group for a number of reasons, particularly although you’ve said we’ve seen very high infection rates in children in recent weeks, they’re actually falling really quickly at the moment.
“And we’re seeing fewer than half the cases in this age group even little more than a week ago, so I think in many ways we’re past the point where vaccines are actually going to make much difference.”
He also said jabs were given to older children to hopefully protect them from interruptions to their schooling.
“We haven’t seen that vaccines have actually done a huge amount to stop these interruptions, so I think the benefits are marginal, and it’s probably too late, because most kids have already had Omicron,” he said.
Last September, England’s chief medical officer Professor Sir Chris Whitty estimated that half of children had had Covid – a figure that will now be far higher.
Other countries, including in Europe and the US, have been vaccinating children aged five to 11 with the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.
Experts from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation are expected to give their decision on vaccinating healthy, young children in the UK shortly.
However, Dr Elizabeth Mann from the University of Manchester said that although the risk of severe disease in children was low, new strains were coming one after one another and Covid is “not something that’s going to go away”.
She said the risks from vaccination were low and children with coronavirus were at risk of long Covid even if their disease was mild.
“I think the implications of that sway it for me in terms of vaccinating children,” she added.
Children aged 12 and over in the UK are currently offered a vaccine but only vulnerable under-12s are eligible for one.
