Young people are not immune from the government’s reckless policies

One of the reasons why Britain’s vaccination programme has been so successful is that the bulk of the population has been convinced that it is safe. Throughout the accelerated research and the rollout, safety has been the paramount consideration under which everyone concerned, including ministers and public health officials, has operated.

As rare complications emerged, they were handled with an abundance of caution. Younger people were thus offered the option of a vaccine other than the still highly effective AstraZeneca jab. The experts were open and transparent about what was happening. Thus, those who propagated the wild conspiracy theories – and not always with the best of motives – consistently lost the argument.

In no circumstances is it more important to follow a “safety first” principle than in those which involve children. Below the age of consent, they cannot competently assess their options – or at least, not to a legally secure standard – and parents have to bear an enormous responsibility in weighing the risks and benefits of vaccinations (as with many other interventions).

This is especially true with Covid, because it tends to be less serious in the young. The decision to offer the vaccine to those nearing their 18th birthdays, and otherwise only to those aged 12 to 18 who are clinically vulnerable (or living with someone who is clinically vulnerable), seems a judicious balance. There is, rightly, no compulsion, and parents do seem to appreciate the guidance being given.

The problem, though, is the wider picture. The vaccination rate is high among adults, with around two-thirds now protected by a double dose, but with so few of the young vaccinated that the overall coverage rate is necessarily lower – not much more than half of the total British population. In the case of the unvaccinated, previous infection does not provide as good a defence as the vaccines, according to at least one recent study. The defensive wall of which Sajid Javid, the health and social care secretary, speaks has not been completed – and it has big holes in it.

The fact remains that herd immunity has simply not been reached in the UK. Younger people, albeit soon out of school, will transmit the disease. Young unvaccinated people are far from immune, and opening up nightclubs and bars will add to the volume of cases among them. Death and hospitalisation rates are down on previous waves, but still of concern, being high enough to pressurise the NHS and disrupt non-Covid care. Long Covid and other Covid complications, meanwhile, can inflict life-changing injuries.

Given the relative weakness of the vaccine wall, and with cases rising exponentially, the relaxation of simple public health precautions – at a time when the general lockdown has long since ended – does seem irrational, even reckless. It will cost lives – and sadly, young ones too.