student vaccine vaccinated young
© E+/Phynart StudioWho benefits from a 16-year-old or a student being vaccinated?
My son and his mates were off to the footie on Saturday, the first match of the season. To get in, the boys needed either to be double-jabbed or to have proof of a negative test. Like millions of students, they have all had Covid - but there was no third option available, as there is in France, the US and other countries, to say that you enjoy immunity from having acquired the virus naturally in the last six months.

Here's a puzzle for you. Why do ministers and scientists barely mention the huge amount of natural immunity that apparently already exists among young British people? According to official data, a stonking 71 per cent of 16- to 24-year-olds have antibodies. Why do they constantly try to bribe and cajole my son's age group - and kids who are even younger - to have a jab they don't need?

I was driving along on Saturday, listening to Heart 70s, when an advert came on the radio. "Don't miss out!" it urged. It took me a few seconds to realise that this wasn't some exciting opportunity for people old enough to remember Showaddywaddy. No, it was the Government wasting our money on a campaign to persuade teenagers that, by not agreeing to get vaccinated, they were somehow sad losers.

The University of Sussex has gone a step further, offering 10 double-jabbed students a shot at winning £5,000, in an attempt to drive up Covid-19 vaccination rates at the start of the new academic year. To me, this seems deeply unethical.

Children's immune systems are astonishing. Like their minds, they are full of potential. The young immune system has an enormous capacity to learn. Covid is a new "subject" for the immune system and young adults can learn it easily. They can remember it really well too, for the next time they are exposed to the virus and any variants. If they actually get Covid, as so many have, it gives them a protection which, thus far, seems superior to that bestowed by any man-made jab.

According to research, the re-infection rate among people previously infected with Covid is much lower than among the double-vaccinated. In the rare cases where re-infection occurs in people who have had Covid, symptoms are on average much milder and the viral load is lower - so they are less infectious to other people. Studies in the US and Israel suggest that, far from being temporary (and, therefore, requiring a booster jab), natural immunity gets better with time.

That isn't the impression you get from watching the news, is it?

The news gives you the impression that young people who don't get jabbed are "hesitant", even selfish. What the news doesn't say is that, for healthy youngsters, getting Covid, with all the fantastic immunity that creates, is about the best thing they can do for their community.

Of course, older people can "learn" new viruses, but perhaps not with quite the same facility as a child. Adults have more stored in the library of our immune memories and, quite likely, some tracts in that library will offer protection against coronaviruses in general. This latest one - like a common cold wearing knuckledusters - requires a quick update to previous editions to deal with its brassy thump. It is our underlying medical conditions - such as diabetes, obesity, lung disease - which make us more vulnerable to Covid-19. So, for me, at my age, getting jabbed twice was a no-brainer, significantly lessening my chances of the virus finding hidden frailties and landing me in hospital.


Comment: Actually, it would seem that there are few arguments for suffering the still-in-trial-phase injections, particularly the highly experimental mRNA ones, because even for the most vulnerable there are other, provably safe and effective medications available, that, along with shielding and the aim to achieve natural herd immunity, would negate any need for any of these risky injections for anyone: The Inanity of RNA Vaccines For COVID-19


For my son and his friends, who are in their early 20s, the risk-benefit analysis looks very different. Unlike their grandparents, they don't need to be protected against serious symptoms and hospitalisation. Unless they have underlying conditions, they are at almost zero risk of dying from Covid (most will experience a "mild illness", as Professor Chris Whitty said at the start of the pandemic).


Comment: And yet government around the world threw citizens into lockdown for a virus that might, for the vast majority, cause "mild illness". This, along with the other nonsensical but coordinated and draconian manouevres, reveal that the insidious agenda was to enforce lockdown.


As for children, researchers from University College London, and the universities of York, Bristol and Liverpool, estimated that 25 deaths in a population of some 12 million children in England gave an overall mortality rate of two per million children. To put that into context, Nasa says the odds of asteroid Bennu hitting the Earth are one in 1,750.


Comment: And it's possible that many of those deaths were wrongly attributed to coronavirus because even children with multiple comorbidities are at an "extremely low risk" of complications from Covid.


Although vaccine side effects in youngsters are very rare, they are not non-existent. Since they stopped jabbing the under-40s with AstraZeneca, the clotting problems associated with that jab in young people have disappeared. Funny that.

In the States, a link between myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle) in youngsters and the Pfizer vaccine has been confirmed. Most adverse reactions were seen in boys after the second dose. That explains why, when the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) recently overturned its earlier decision and gave approval for the vaccination of 16- and 17-year-olds, it specified they should only have one dose. Most reports omitted that telling detail.

"The long-term risks associated with post-vaccination myocarditis remain unknown," the American journal concluded. "Larger studies with longer follow-up are needed to inform recommendations for Covid-19 vaccination in this population."

I should damn well think so. The mRNA vaccines are a new technology, authorised for emergency use, which have been declared "safe" without any of the usual long-term trials. You can argue confidently that it's well worth it for older people, who could die of Covid or become very ill, to run a tiny risk with a relatively untested vaccine. For young people, there is no such case.


Comment: Even people using their critical thinking faculties and partly questioning the propaganda have convinced themselves that perhaps there are reasons for these mRNA experiments, likely because they can't fathom that governments and scientists would have approved them unless there was good reason, except there is no valid reason for them at all.

It's difficult for many to accept that governments and respected institutions could become so corrupted, but history shows that it is not only possible, it happens repeatedly, with even the recent past providing stark warnings: 'Follow the Science': Doctors joined the Nazis in droves


Yet, the Government and the pharmaceutical companies plough on regardless. The MHRA (Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency) has authorised an extension to the current UK approval of the Spikevax vaccine (formerly Moderna) which allows its use in 12- to 17-year-olds. Will the JCVI, which not long ago said the risk of a Covid vaccine to teenagers outweighed the benefits, suddenly decide its OK with jabbing 12-year-olds?


Comment: The coronavirus is big business for the establishment: Pfizer, Moderna reaping BILLIONS from COVID-19 injection 'booster' market


This week, we learnt that all 16- and 17-year-olds will be able to book their first coronavirus vaccine dose by August 23. Sajid Javid said offering vaccines by that date would allow teenagers "to get some protection" before starting school or college next month.

Sorry, protection from what? Public Health England has said that being jabbed doesn't stop you getting the virus, nor from passing it on. Teenagers no more need protection against Covid than they need protection against dementia or heart disease or asteroids.

Look, I am a huge fan of the UK's remarkable vaccination programme. However, as Kate Bingham, its driving force and heroine, said, the vaccines are meant for adults - not children. Every time I see a member of the JCVI defending the extension of vaccination to younger and younger cohorts, my maternal radar goes haywire. I don't trust what they're saying because I don't think they really trust what they're saying.

Last week, Prof Adam Finn of the JCVI said, with what might, in other circumstances, be called vaccine hesitancy: "The UK should vaccinate 16- and 17-year-olds slowly as there is a delicate balance between benefits and risks."

As the mother of a young man, I beg to differ. Who benefits from a 16-year-old or a student being vaccinated?

Maybe it's another way for the Government to appease the teaching unions, who seem to rate their members' wellbeing above children's education, and who could yet cut up rough about being made to go back to the classroom in September unless it's "safe"?

Maybe it's a way to curry favour with parents who tell pollsters, overwhelmingly, that they want their kids to be vaccinated, but who don't seem to understand that a jab presents more risk to their little darlings than Covid itself?

Maybe it's to facilitate a smooth return to university, even though the double-jabbed students are just as likely to get Covid, or pass it on, as their unvaccinated friends?

Maybe it's to use up all those vaccines Matt Hancock paid billions for?

Maybe giving jabs to youngsters who don't need them is considered a small price to pay to soothe the inflamed paranoia that makes Britons the most fearful people in the world?

Is that really what we've come to? Exposing our children to unnecessary medical interventions to placate the Coronabeast? Heaven knows, we've seen a lot of mad things these past 17 months, but this is right up there with the maddest. Why can't we acknowledge the vast and superior protection youngsters who have had Covid now enjoy? Why can't we allow them to get Covid, which is how every previous epidemic in history ended?

The Government had better pray there are no long-term consequences from making kids with immunity get vaccinated just to go to the footie. That really would be the most appalling own goal.
You can read Allison Pearson's column every Tuesday and listen to Allison with fellow columnist Liam Halligan on The Telegraph's Planet Normal podcast, featuring news and views from beyond the bubble, on the audio player below or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your preferred podcast app