Labour has called on the government to give a “Christmas vaccine guarantee” to the hundreds of thousands of eligible children in England who have been unable to receive a Covid vaccination.
With recent figures showing that just 44% of children in the 12-15 age group had been vaccinated on 8 December, Bridget Phillipson, the shadow education secretary, said the government needed to make a bigger push to vaccinate the remainder before they returned to school in the new year.
“As Omicron cases in the UK are rising, it’s essential that ministers use the Christmas holidays to get the vaccine out to children, preventing continued chaos next term,” Phillipson said.
“Labour has been calling on ministers to use pop-up and walk-in clinics, and bring back volunteers and retired clinicians to increase vaccine rollout, but 13 weeks after the jab was approved [by the chief medical officers] the Conservatives have failed to deliver.
“With hundreds of thousands of children out of school each week this term, the government must urgently get a grip and stop neglecting children’s education.”
The government had initially aimed to offer vaccinations to all 12- to 15-year-olds by the October half-term break. But the most recent figures suggest it will struggle to vaccinate half by the end of term next week.
The Department of Health and Social Care has described the vaccination programme in England as “a phenomenal success”, with children able to be vaccinated at school or using the national booking system.
Phillipson’s call came as two primary schools in England reported cases of the Omicron variant, including among staff and pupils at Solent infant school in Portsmouth. An entire year group at Manor community primary school near Dartford in Kent was sent home after a case emerged there.
Phillipson has written to Nadhim Zahawi, the education secretary, asking him to urge the Department for Health to drive up vaccination rates among children, including a campaign to promote vaccinations and access to walk-in clinics.
Earlier this week, Susan Acland-Hood, the permanent secretary at the Department for Education (DfE), suggested to MPs that most schools would have to pay for any new air conditioning or ventilation from their existing budgets.
“In Germany and New York, ventilation systems have been in place in schools for months. Once again, England is lagging behind our international counterparts and children are being let down as a result,” Phillipson wrote.
But even before the Omicron variant began spreading in England, attendance data from the DfE showed that more than 200,000 pupils were absent for Covid-related reasons at the end of November, a rise of 60% in two weeks.
Results collated by Education Datalab suggest that the absence rate in state secondary schools is close to 10%, compared with nearly 6% before the pandemic. The biggest contributor to the rise has been in number of pupils off school because of illness.
The DfE counts pupils absent for “Covid-related” reasons if they have suspected symptoms or a positive lateral flow test result. But if they return a positive PCR test they are counted as absent because of illness. As a result, the figures understate the full impact of Covid on school attendance.
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