Vaccination Strategy

Caroline Johnson Excerpts

Wednesday 12th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am going to hand over to my colleague in the Chair, but before I do so, to help the Minister I remind Members that we still have some nurses who can give injections at a pop-up in the House of Commons.

[Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

I declare my interest as a consultant paediatrician working in the NHS and as a volunteer vaccinator. I am very proud to be part of the vaccination programme that has undoubtedly saved so very many lives.

I want to focus on children. I have worked in hospital over the past month and have been looking after children who have had positive tests. That is not unexpected because the virus is high in the population and of course we test everybody. However, I have not been looking after children who were admitted because of covid. In September, we heard that the decision on whether to offer children vaccines was finely balanced. Indeed, the JCVI referred that decision to the chief medical officers, who finally decided, on the basis of educational disruption, to offer children vaccines. Given that omicron is less harmful than the variants we were considering at the time, has the Minister asked the JCVI and the CMOs to consider whether these vaccines are still, on balance, better for children than not—except, perhaps, in the context of travel?

[Maggie Throup]

I thank my hon. Friend for her role in vaccinating probably thousands of people by now. Everybody has played their part, using their skills and their time to roll out the vaccination programme in such an amazing way. I assure my hon. Friend, who obviously has an awful lot of expertise and knowledge, that JCVI continually looks at the data. We hear announcements from the JCVI and think they are just about what it has considered on that particular day, but I assure the House that it continually looks at the data to make sure that we move forward in the right manner.