Back in April 2022 the NHS stated “The NHS will start vaccinating children aged 5-11 today as the biggest and most successful vaccination drive in health service history moves to the next phase.” [1]
Now the UK Health Security Agency a UK government institution has announced that it will no longer provide the Covid-19 vaccine to healthy 5 to 11-year-old children. The decision comes after official data from another UK Government institution the Office for National Statistics shows that deaths among children aged 5 to 9 are 22% higher than in the previous two years since the NHS began vaccinating children aged 5-11 on April 4 2022.
At the same time Dr. Nikki Kanani GP and Deputy Lead for the NHS COVID-19 vaccination programme keeps on insisting that “The vaccine is safe and effective – my 10-year-old daughter will be getting hers this week – and I’d encourage all parents to read the information and consider booking their child in for a vaccination at the earliest opportunity.”
It is not known if the NHS and Dr. Nikki Kanani still stand by these claims now that they know deaths among young children have increased by 22% and the UKHSA no longer considers it necessary to offer the Covid-19 injection to children aged 5 to 11.
Children who have not reached the age of five by the end of August 2022 will not be offered the Covid-19 vaccine according to the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA). According to an article published in The Guardian “The decision to reduce the number of children who are offered Covid jabs has prompted outcry from parent groups and academics.”[2]
However the UKHSA insists that the offer of Covid vaccines to healthy children aged five to eleven was always intended to be temporary.
However data released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) strongly suggests that the UKHSA has decided to pause the roll-out to healthy young children for a troubling reason.
Data from the Office for National Statistics on deaths registered weekly show a 22% increase in deaths among children aged five to nine in England and Wales over the previous two years since the NHS proudly announced it was about to begin vaccinating young children.
The following snapshot[3] which depicts the number of deaths per week among children aged 5 to 9 from week 14 to week 35 of 2022 is taken from table 2a of the ONS’s 2022 dataset of deaths registered weekly in England and Wales.
Week 14 is the week ending April 8 2022 which coincides with the NHS announcement that they would begin vaccinating children aged 5 to 11 on April 4th.
The graph below depicts the overall number of deaths among children aged 5 to 9 between week 14 and week 35 of 2020 2021 and 2022.
Between weeks 14 and 35 of 2020 a total of 85 children aged 5 to 9 died. In 2021 86 children aged 5 to 9 died during the same time period. This equates to an average of 85.5 deaths over the two years implying that deaths are normally expected to be at this level due to the two years having nearly the same number of deaths.
However between week 14 (the same week the NHS began offering the Covid-19 vaccine to healthy 5 to 11-year-olds) and week 35 in 2022 a total of 104 children died (the same week the UKHSA decided to stop offering the Covid-19 vaccine to healthy 5 to 11-year-olds).
[1]https://www.england.nhs.uk/2022/04/nhs-rolls-out-covid-vaccine-to-five-million-5-to-11-year-olds/
[2]https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/06/anger-at-plans-to-roll-back-covid-vaccines-to-under-11s-in-england
[3]https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/weeklyprovisionalfiguresondeathsregisteredinenglandandwales