Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Public Health England document entitled Easy-read consent form for children, young people or parents and carers, what the evidential basis is for the statement that there is a small chance of catching covid-19 if you have been vaccinated; and how the Government defines small in that context.

The evidence is based on published literature. In a recent trial of 2,260 adolescents aged 12 to 15 years old three COVID-19 cases were noted within 11 days after dose one among Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine recipients, as compared with 12 cases among those who had not received the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. There were no cases more than seven days after two doses, which is the recommended course for at-risk children. The study, ‘Safety, Immunogenicity, and Efficacy of the BNT162b2 Covid-19 Vaccine in Adolescents’, is available at the following link:

https://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMoa2107456

In this context, the definition of ‘small’ means that although individuals could still be infected with the virus, they are less likely to develop symptoms of COVID-19 after vaccination.