Give Children Flu Vaccines to Protect Granny at Christmas, Says UK’s NHS
Children should be given flu vaccinations to protect their grandparents at Christmas, NHS bosses have said – despite the lack of evidence that flu vaccines prevent infection or transmission.
The Telegraph has more.
Flu rates are currently more than three times higher among children than pensioners and there are fears that the virus will spread to older generations during the festive season.
Despite warnings that this flu season could be the worst on record and peak at Christmas, fewer than half of children aged five to 14 have been vaccinated, the latest figures show.
Health chiefs warned that while children were much more likely to get flu, older people were far more likely to be taken to hospital if they caught it.
Caroline Temmink, the NHS Director of Vaccinations, said: “As families gear up for festive celebrations together, it’s now or never to get protected against flu in time for Christmas.
“Children are super-spreaders and with flu infections rising fast in younger age groups, getting kids vaccinated is one of the best ways to prevent serious illness, especially for grandparents and loved ones who are vulnerable.”
Latest data show that the daily percentage of tests positive for flu is 46.9 among those aged five to 14, against rates of between 12.5 and 14.5 in those aged 65 and over. …
Schools across the country have resorted to Covid-style lockdown measures to contain the spread.
Headteachers have ordered ‘firebreak’ school closures and cancelled singing in assemblies.
Three schools shut for several days in recent weeks while several introduced measures to tackle the spread, including cancelling nativity plays.
However, Government officials have now ordered schools not to do so except in “extreme circumstances”.
Read the report in full here.
If nearly half of flu tests in children are positive despite nearly half of children being vaccinated, what does that say about the effectiveness of the vaccine? Caroline Temmink doesn’t say, though last month the Government claimed the vaccine is “currently 70 to 75% effective at preventing hospital attendance in children aged two to 17 years”. There is no mention, however, of how effective it is at preventing infection and transmission – the only thing that matters when you’re trying to save granny, who in any case is herself presumably vaccinated in the hope of preventing serious disease. Even Anthony Fauci admitted (in a 2023 paper) that flu vaccines fail to prevent infection because the flu virus is “quickly transmitted to other hosts, within a narrow window of time before adaptive immune responses are fully marshalled”.
This year’s supposedly high rates of flu are (so far) mainly an illusion created by the wave happening slightly earlier, as can be seen in this chart. Most likely the overall shape and total numbers will be similar to other years by the end of the season.
