While, in the US, Joe Biden appealed to schoolchildren directly to reassure them that the 'safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine' which has gone through a 'rigorous' and 'thorough' review, will prevent them from spreading COVID-19 'to their friends, to their siblings, to their parents and to the grandparents' and encouraging parents to make sure their kids get the shot.
Does a degree in PPE qualify Matt Hancock to indefatigably state the rewards of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine outweigh the risks for children?
Does a Political Science and History degree qualify Biden to state irrefutably that experimental COVID vaccines with no long-term safety data are safe? Could he name a single vaccine ingredient - even with the aid of an auto-cue? Has he even read the FDA report?
Has Prince Harry? Has the Pope?
According to an FDA report of Dec 12 2020 on the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, while the more common reported adverse events following vaccination were injection site reactions (84.1%), fatigue (62.9%), headache (55.1%), muscle pain (38.3%), chills (31.9%), joint pain (23.6%) and fever (14.2%) - 0.5% reported at least one serious adverse event (i.e. life threatening injury, inpatient hospitalisation, persistent disability/incapacity or death). For children adverse events were higher - 4.6% compared to 2.8% in the older trial participants.
Yet in spite of the elevated risks associated with vaccinating the young, everybody it seems is in on the act of getting them vaccinated, including 100 US colleges who now require students to be vaccinated in order to attend in-person classes.
In fact, there is truly no low to which US states won't sink in order to drag every child and adolescent into the largest vaccine trial in history.
Joints for jabs in Washington and New York (plus the extra sweetener of a free 7-day subway pass for getting jabbed at a subway jab-hub), $1,000 towards courses and housing costs at one New Jersey College, $100 saving bonds for the 16-35 year olds of West Virginia, $100 to pull in Marylanders while $50 did it for Detroiters and those in Connecticut settled for a beer. If they moved to Ohio, they would be entered into $1M prize draw with five lucky vaccinated winners.
And the goody bags don't stop there.
There were offers of free post-jab Super Bowl and Baseball tickets, a monthly concert series in Chicago for the newly vaccinated and even Krispy Kreme, Budweiser, and Nathan's Hot Dogs rolled up to the bargain basement vaccine sale which also proved a nice little earner for Lyft and Uber who ran millions of people to vaccination sites with a $15 sub from Joe. Never mind the blood clots - just think of the donuts!
In the UK, Geoff Barton, general secretary of the UK's Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) clearly hasn't read the FDA report either. But not only does he support mass vaccination for both teachers and schoolchildren (as do all teachers' unions) he's happy for them all to be vaccinated during lessons:
I think there will be a sense of schools wanting to step up and play their part and explain to children why having the vaccine is important during assemblies and in tutor time.Children don't need the COVID vaccine Geoff. Nor do teachers. For secondary school teachers between the ages of 20-64, the total number of deaths 'involving' COVID-19 in England and Wales was 35 - which includes those with co-morbidities. For primary and nursery education teaching professionals, the number was 15 - i.e. in total, less than deaths following blood clots from a single vaccine brand.
Even the prone to exaggeration Public Health England admits transmission rates in primary schools during Autumn term was 'extremely low' and outbreaks 'rare'.
No matter. Prior to Pfizer's US vaccine rollout (Pfizer has applied to the MHRA for emergency use approval for its UK vaccine rollout for 12-15-year-olds - even though there is no emergency) Bill Gruber, senior vice president at Pfizer described the trial results as having a 'trifecta' of good news. 'We have safety, we got the immune response we wanted - it was actually better than what we saw in the 16 to 25-year-old population - and we had outright demonstration of efficacy.'
So what Bill? These kids don't need your vaccine.
In the whole of the US up until April 28th 2021 there were 227 deaths in the 0-17 age group from COVID 19. That's 277 out of 73 million in the 0-17 age group. And according to a CDC report, the recent Pfizer/BioNTech trials on 12-15-year-olds resulted in 0.8% emergency hospitalisations, 0.2% life-threatening injuries and 0.2% death. Which means a 0-17 year old is far more likely to die from a COVID vaccine than COVID.
Child fatalities are not the numbers pharmaceutical companies care about. If they did, they'd have pulled the vaccines already.
Instead, Pfizer and BioNTech have further extended the trial to include 2-5 year olds. Next up are 6-month to 2 year olds. What would a parent require in order to offer up their 6-month old for trials of an experimental vaccine? Free nappies?
Doesn't bribery carry a five-year jail term? Or has it been legalised along with injecting untested, experimental vaccines with dubious efficacy and zero long-term safety data into healthy adults and children?
Just who will stop the FDA, CDC or ACIP (the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices endorsed the emergency use extension for 12-15-year-olds with 14-0 majority in spite of 91% of recorded adverse events in trials) from rolling out the COVID vaccines out further to those who don't need them and for whom they could prove fatal?
Why are there no mathematical models on vaccines? Because if Neil Ferguson had used his magic coding calculator to scale up vaccine risks in children - no one would go near the things.
Once you factor in evidential data that adverse events are higher in the young, that adverse reactions following the Pfizer/BioNTech jab is doubled for those with prior immunity, that no prior immunity tests - either T-cell memory or post-COVID are carried out pre-vaccination and that the second dose is far worse than the first, it beggars belief that the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is now being pumped into the arms of healthy 12-15-year-olds whose only vulnerability is to live in America (or Canada). How did the Land of the Free and the home of the Brave turn so easily into the Land of the Incarcerated and the Home of the Vaccinated?
The UK is no better. In fact, the only reason it is currently lagging behind with its drive to jab children, is because the Oxford/AstraZeneca drugs trial on children was pulled following concerns around blood clots.
Being as how 50 people have already died from blood clots after receiving the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccination in the adult population, logic or at least data must surely dictate that such issues would be magnified when faced with a young, strong immune system. Compare that then to the 36 children and adolescents who died from COVID in the 0-19 year age group and it's clear that the risks vs. rewards are most definitely not worth it. By a long way.
Regardless of which, Core Planning Scenario documents compiled by the NHS on future plans to vaccinate children are already circulating the corridors of power. The official line is that a decision is yet to be made.
In spite of an open letter send to June Raine of the MHRA from UK doctors citing Safety and Ethical Concerns Surrounding COVID-19 Vaccination in Children, the government will inevitably follow suit, as they did with the universal Lockdown Narrative of masks, social distancing and the closure of pubs, restaurants, cinemas and places of worship.
Meanwhile, the MHRA will sign on the dotted line and look forward to another few million dollars from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
But could there be a glimmer of hope on the horizon? With teachers leaving their unions in droves in protest at the unions' relentless campaigning for children to continue wearing masks in class - something teachers feel gives the profession a bad name - would it be too much of a leap to surmise that teachers (who, unlike unions, have a relationship with their pupils) may feel even more strongly about the imposition of vaccines in the classroom, either for themselves or the students?
Let's hope so. Because when MHRA capitulates, we're going to need those with the bravery and guts of Tiananmen Square's Tank Man (and the lead driver of the convoy) to halt the 19th Vaccine Panza Division as it rolls into town, flanked by the crazed, syringe-wielding Generals Hancock, Zahawi and Van-Tam.
It won't be the churches and mosques that stand in its way - they're offering themselves up as vaccination centres. Nor will it be Save The Children who even supply their own Little Jab Book with behavioural science strategies for increasing vaccination uptake. It won't be the AWOL GPs or disappearing human rights lawyers and it certainly won't be the mainstream media who are the worst collaborators of all.
Currently, the only ones holding the line are parents and voluntary organisations such as Molly Kingsley founder of us for them. But if the UK Government follows Canada's lead and hands medical consent over to 12-15 year olds, someone else might have to step up to disable the caterpillar treads of the convoy.
It could be a young student in a white shirt facing down a convoy of tanks armed with nothing but his shopping. Or it could be teacher. Not all superheroes wear capes.
About The Author
Suzie Halewood is a mathematician and filmmaker. www.dv19.org
RC