17 July 2021 | New Scientist | 5IF THERE has been one saving grace of
the covid-19 pandemic, it is that children
are relatively safe from serious disease
and death compared with adults.
Over the first year of the pandemic, only
259 under-18s in England were admitted
to intensive care with covid-19. Another
312 were treated for a serious but rare
condition that developed after infection
called delayed inflammatory syndrome.
As the UK government prepares to lift
nearly all covid-19 restrictions in England
on 19 July and allow the virus to spread
through the community (see page 7),
it might seem as if children aren’t at
risk, but this isn’t the case.
Under-18s make up a fifth of the
UK population and very few have
been vaccinated, because unlike
countries such as the US, which isoffering covid-19 vaccines to children
who are 12 and over, the UK has decided
to hold off (see page 8). Cases of covid-
in the UK are growing fast, and with
more than half of the adult population
vaccinated, the spread of the virus
will be driven into younger people,especially unvaccinated children.
Effectively, the government is pursuing
a “natural herd immunity” strategy, in
which children are exposed to the virus
until nearly all of them develop immunity.
If children are at low risk of dying,
does this matter? Well, when very large
numbers of people are exposed to thevirus, many will get ill and some will die.
In the case of children, those at highest
risk are those with underlying medical
conditions. In the first year of the
pandemic, 25 children died in the UK
from either acute covid-19 or the delayed
inflammatory syndrome, and that
was while restrictions were in place.
In addition, some 13 per cent of
infected children develop persistent
and sometimes debilitating symptoms.
Letting the virus rip through a pool of
unvaccinated people also increases the
risk of a new variant emerging that can
evade the protection from the vaccines
we have. We have argued many times
in the pages of this magazine against
taking this kind of herd immunity
approach to the pandemic. The same
logic applies to children. ❚Children are still at risk
Easing of England’s covid-19 lockdown puts unvaccinated children in the firing line
The leader
“Unlike the US, the UK is
holding off on vaccinating
children against covid-19”EDITORIAL
Chief executive Nina Wright
Executive assistant Lorraine Lodge
Finance & operations
Chief financial officer Amee Dixon
Financial controller Taryn Skorjenko
Management accountant Alfred Princewill
Facilities manager Ricci Welch
Receptionist Alice Catling
Human resources
Human resources director Shirley Spencer
HR business partner Katy Le PoidevinPUBLISHING & COMMERCIAL
Commercial and events director Adrian Newton
Display advertising
Tel +44 (0)20 7611 1291 Email [email protected]
Sales director Justin Viljoen
Sales manager Rosie Bolam
Recruitment advertising
Tel +44 (0)20 7611 1204 Email [email protected]
Recruitment sales manager Viren Vadgama
New Scientist Events
Tel +44 (0)20 7611 1245 Email [email protected]
Creative director Valerie Jamieson
Sales director Jacqui McCarron
Event manager Henry Gomm
Marketing manager Emiley Partington
Events team support manager Rose Garton
New Scientist Discovery Tours
Director Kevin Currie
Marketing
Marketing director Jo Adams
Head of campaign marketing James Nicholson
Head of customer experience Emma Robinson
Email/CRM manager Rose Broomes
Digital marketing manager Craig Walker
Customer experience marketing manager Esha Bhabuta
Marketing executive Amelia Parmiter
Digital & Data
Digital product development director Laurence Taylor
Head of audience data Rachael Dunderdale
Business intelligence analyst Michael Prosser
Technology
CTO and programme director Debora Brooksbank-Taylor
Head of technology Tom McQuillan
Maria Moreno Garrido, Dan Pudsey, Amardeep Sian,
Ben Townsend, Piotr WalkówEditor Emily Wilson
Executive editor Richard Webb
Creative director Craig Mackie
News
News editor Penny Sarchet
Editors Jacob Aron, Helen Thomson, Chelsea Whyte
Reporters (UK) Jessica Hamzelou, Michael Le Page,
Layal Liverpool, Matthew Sparkes,
Adam Vaughan, Clare Wilson
(US) Leah Crane, (Aus) Alice Klein
Intern Krista Charles
Digital
Digital editor Conrad Quilty-Harper
Podcast editor Rowan Hooper
Web team Emily Bates, Anne Marie Conlon, Matt Hambly,
Alexander McNamara, David Stock, Sam Wong
Features
Head of features Catherine de Lange
and Tiffany O’Callaghan
Editors Daniel Cossins, Anna Demming,
Kate Douglas, Alison George, Joshua Howgego
Feature writer Graham Lawton
Culture and Community
Comment and culture editor Timothy Revell
Liz Else
Subeditors
Chief subeditor Eleanor Parsons
Bethan Ackerley, Tom Campbell,
Chris Simms, Jon White
Design
Art editor Julia Lee
Joe Hetzel, Ryan Wills
Picture desk
Picture editor Helen Benians
Tim Boddy
Production
Production manager Joanne Keogh
Robin BurtonCONTACT US
newscientist.com/contact
General & media enquiries
US PO Box 80247, Portland, OR 97280
UK Tel +44 (0)20 7611 1200
25 Bedford Street, London WC2E 9ES
Australia 418A Elizabeth St, Surry Hills, NSW 2010
US Newsstand Tel +1 973 909 5819
Distributed by Time Inc. Retail, a division of Meredith
Corporation, 6 Upper Pond Road, Parsippany, NJ 07054
Syndication Tribune Content Agency
Tel 1-800-346-8798 Email [email protected]
Subscriptions newscientist.com/subscribe
Tel 1 888 822 3242
Email [email protected]
Post New Scientist, PO Box 3806,
Chesterfield MO 63006-© 2021 New Scientist Ltd, England.
New Scientist ISSN 0262 4079 is published weekly except
for the last week in December by New Scientist Ltd, England.
New Scientist (Online) ISSN 2059 5387. New Scientist Limited,
387 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10016Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY and
other mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to
New Scientist, PO Box 3806, Chesterfield, MO 63006-9953, USA.
Registered at the Post Office as a newspaper and printed in USA
by Fry Communications Inc, Mechanicsburg, PA 17055