An assessment of the vaccination of school-aged children in England

Abstract

BACKGROUND. Children and young persons are known to have a high number of close interactions, oftenwithin the school environment, which can facilitate rapid spread of infection; yet for SARS-CoV-2 it isthe elderly and vulnerable that suffer the greatest health burden. Vaccination, initially targeting theelderly and vulnerable but later expanded to the entire adult population, has been transformative inthe control of SARS-CoV-2 in England. However, early concerns over adverse events and the lower riskassociated with infection in younger individuals means that the expansion of the vaccine programmeto those under 18 year of age needs to be rigorously and quantitatively assessed. METHODS. Here, using a bespoke mathematical model matched to case and hospital data for England,we consider the potential impact of vaccinating 12-17 and 5-11 year olds. This analysis is reportedfrom an early model (generated in June 2021) that formed part of the evidence base for the decisionsin England, and a later model (from November 2021) that benefits from a richer understanding ofvaccine efficacy, greater knowledge of the Delta variant wave and uses data on the rate of vaccineadministration. For both models we consider the population wide impact of childhood vaccination aswell as the specific impact on the age-group targeted for vaccination. RESULTS. Projections from June suggested that an expansion of the vaccine programme to those 12-17years old could generate substantial reductions in infection, hospital admission and deaths in the en-tire population, depending on population behaviour following the relaxation of control measures. Thebenefits within the 12-17 year old cohort were less marked, saving between 656 and 1077 (95% predic-tion interval 281-2260) hospital admissions and between 22 and 38 (95% PI 9-91) deaths dependingon assumed population behaviour. For the more recent model, the benefits within this age group arereduced, saving on average 631 (95% PI 304-1286) hospital admissions and 11 (95% PI 5-28) deathsfor 80% vaccine uptake, while the benefits to the wider population represent a reduction of 8-10% inhospital admissions and deaths. The vaccination of 5-11 year olds is projected to have a far smallerimpact, in part due to the later roll-out of vaccines to this age-group. CONCLUSIONS. Vaccination of 12-17 year olds and 5-11 year olds is projected to generate a reductionin infection, hospital admission and deaths for both the age-groups involved and the population ingeneral. For any decision involving childhood vaccination, these benefits needs to be balanced againstpotential adverse events from the vaccine, the operational constraints on delivery and the potentialfor diverting resources from other public health campaigns.

Comparison of the 2021 COVID-19 Roadmap Projections against Public Health Data in England

“…Although the development of the Warwick SARS-CoV-2 transmission and COVID-19 disease model has been described elsewhere in extensive detail [5, 7, 13, 28], here we summarise the main salient components and the method of parameter inference.…”

‘I think that's what I heard? I'm not sure’: Speech and language therapists’ views of, and practices in, phonetic transcription

“…There were also differences in the use (or not) of specific symbols used by SLTs depending on which populations they usually work with. One generalist SLT felt that repeatedly using the CLEAR phonology assessment (Keeling & Keeling, 2006)—which was consistently described by generalists as their ‘go‐to’ assessment—with similar clients had led to her becoming accustomed to completing the assessment as if by rote, using the same English phoneme symbols each time to capture typical phonological errors: ‘the majority of my transcription is the CLEAR, and it's almost now become muscle memory. And then I feel like I've lost that wider skill of being able to transcribe’.…”