Invitations will be sent to 16 and 17 year olds not sooner than three months after they have completed their primary dose of vaccine. Any of them eligible already can contact the vaccination call centre on 220006.
Boosters will also be offered to any child aged 12 to 15 who is in a clinical risk group or a household contact of someone who is immunosuppressed or severely immunosuppressed themselves and has had a third primary dose of vaccine. The three months interval rule will apply to this group of children as well.
And some children aged five to 11 are set to be offered two doses of the Pfizer vaccine with an interval of eight weeks between the first and second doses. This will apply to children of that age who are in a clinical risk group or who are a household contact of someone who is immunosuppressed. Parents and carers of this group of children will be notified of vaccine arrangements in the next two weeks.
Deputy Al Brouard, President of the Committee for Health & Social Care, said: “Offering the option of the vaccine to young people requires careful consideration and our Committee has done that throughout the development and progression of our vaccination programme.
“We have aligned with the advice of the JCVI to date and took the decision that we would again do so on this occasion with these specific cohorts.
“Children, young people and their parents need to be supported in having appropriate conversations about whether to take up this offer and we always ensure the invitation letters contain relevant information to help support those discussions.”
Pictured: The latest figures on covid-19 in the Bailiwick show that there have been nearly 11,500 infections since the pandemic arrived nearly two years ago.
The latest testing results, released by the States yesterday, continue to show a steady increase in the number of known active cases of covid-19 since the States lifted several restrictions introduced when the omicron variant was detected in the Bailiwick.
There are 732 known active cases. In the preceding 24-hour period, there were 34 recoveries but 149 new cases of infection.
There are eight hospital patients in the Bailiwick with a recent covid-19 diagnosis. Six of these are related to an outbreak in a ward and are asymptomatic.
The operator of the island’s public buses, CT Plus, yesterday told Express how sickness and restrictions relating to covid-19 are affecting services. And Condor’s services to the island were similarly disrupted yesterday.
Pictured: Staff shortages caused by covid-19 meant the Commodore Clipper was unable to carry passengers yesterday.
Elwyn Dop, Condor’s Operations Director, said: “[Wednesday’s] Commodore Clipper service to the islands has operated as freight-only as a number of customer-facing cabin crew tested positive for covid-19 overnight and are isolating.
“We do not have the minimum legal number to offer a passenger service. The situation only developed on Tuesday night and we were unable to source standby crew at such short notice so this decision had to be made at the last minute.
“Condor Liberation will run additional sailings on Thursday [today] from Poole to the islands and passengers are being automatically transferred. Freight services remain unaffected.
“We apologise to passengers affected by this late decision but we were not left with any choice. Condor remains absolutely committed to maintaining the freight supply chain to the Islands.”