Covid-19 Vaccinations: 12 to 15-year-olds

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Monday 13th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I will happily write to my right hon. Friend with the data that the JCVI and the CMOs have looked at. Suffice it to say that the data that I have looked at from the United Kingdom, where we have not embarked on a children’s vaccination programme but are about to, is that 60% of those who are double-vaccinated do not become infected with the delta variant, which is the dominant variant at the moment, and therefore cannot transmit and infect others; 40% can.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

The Minister mentioned the booster programme. Will he publish all the scientific evidence on which any wider booster plan is based? Will he consider the message that a population-wide booster programme might risk sending to other countries: the sense that everyone has to do it? We know that supplies of the vaccine are not limitless, so that could be an absolute disaster for countries in Africa, for example, where only 2% of people are fully vaccinated. Will he consider prioritising vaccines that are within their shelf life, for example, and giving them to COVAX? As he and others have said many times, none of us is safe until we all are.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

Just as we published the JCVI’s interim advice on 30 June, we will absolutely do the same with the final advice. We have now delivered more than 9 million doses, through COVAX or bilaterally, out of the 100 million that we planned to deliver. We went further when we received a request from our Australian colleagues: we delivered 4 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine that they needed immediately, and we can take that back when we think we need it for our booster programme. The hon. Lady quite rightly highlights the issue of vaccinating with the rest of the world, which is an important part of our work with the vaccines taskforce.

I reassure the House and families listening at home that, as far as the interim advice or any final advice allows, I am confident that we will have vaccines available to boost all those whom the JCVI recommends we should boost.