Council asked ‘are schools ready to vaccinate teens?’
ACOUNCILLOR has asked if Cheshire East schools are ready to host a possible Covid vaccination programme for 12 to 15-year-olds if required.
At the time of writing, Coronavirus vaccines for healthy children aged between 12 and 15 are not being recommended by the UK’s vaccine advisory body which says the benefits on health grounds alone were ‘marginal’, but the country’s four chief medical officers are currently reviewing the matter.
At Tuesday’s meeting of the council’s corporate policy committee Cllr Stewart Gardiner (Con) asked: “If the government determines that it’s appropriate to vaccinate 12 to 15-year-olds, are our schools ready to be used as centres for such vaccinations because obviously, normally, that would be the way in which children are vaccinated, in a school setting unless their parents choose otherwise.”
Council leader Sam Corcoran (Lab) said that, regarding 12 to 15-yearolds there was a comment in the report to the committee ‘that says, in respect to both test and trace, and the lack of a national strategy, is still a major cause for concern’.
He added: “I would praise our local test trace team, who have to deal with a lot of uncertainty in the way the government is giving the instructions, and I do hope that the government will get a national strategy in place soon. And I’m sure our test trace team would be willing and able to support in developing that strategy.”
Cllr Gardiner repeated that his question related to schools, but he did not get a response.
He told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) after the meeting that he would continue to press the council for an answer because schools had to be prepared in case they were to host the program in the future.
“The government hasn’t made a decision yet [on vaccinating] but if the government does make a decision there will be an expectation of immediate response so are we ready for that?” Cllr Gardiner said to the LDRS.
“Are our schools ready to host the vaccination program for 12 to 15-year-olds?”
The Knutsford councillor also raised concerns about the low uptake of the Covid vaccination in some wards in Cheshire East compared to others.
The report to the committee stated that, as of August 21, 86.6 per cent of the eligible population of Cheshire East residents had received their first dose and 78.3 per cent had received their second.
But it stated: “The rates within electoral wards range from 61 per cent to 91 per cent.
Cllr Gardiner said: “I’m concerned by the lower figure of 61 per cent. I am aware that we have been progressing things in a different way, including pop up clinics.
“I wonder how effective this has been in bringing down the number of people who have not been vaccinated in those wards.”
Cllr Corcoran praised the vaccination programme being run by the NHS Cheshire Clinical Commissioning Group.
“We are doing very well in Cheshire East, and I hope that will continue,” he said. “Some of the variation is simply due to demographics, so wards that have younger populations won’t have had as many people vaccinated as wards with older populations. “
He added: “I would put an appeal out to anyone who hasn’t been double vaccinated yet - get vaccinated, it does make a real difference.
“No vaccination is completely 100 per cent, effective, but it does reduce your chances of catching, passing on and being hospitalised from Covid-19.”