14 Wednesday February 16 2022 | the times
News
Children as young as five could soon be
offered coronavirus jabs, after it
emerged that the move had been ap-
proved by regulators.
Baroness Morgan of Ely, the Welsh
health minister, said yesterday that she
had received advice from the Joint
Committee on Vaccination and Immu-
nisation (JCVI), backing voluntary in-
oculation for younger children.
The advice has yet to be published by
the government but Morgan said she
had seen its recommendations and was
preparing to begin the process.
The JCVI was due to publish its offi-
cial recommendation last week but it
was delayed.
It is understood that details could be
released as part of Downing Street’s
wider announcement of its “living with
Covid”, due next Monday.
The Medicines and Healthcare Prod-
ucts Regulatory Agency has already
approved the Pfizer-BioNTech jab for
use in the under-12s after finding that it
Hancock breached equality
law when hiring Tory peer
Oliver WrightVaccines for five-year-olds get closer
is safe and effective. Many countries,
including France and the United States,
are already offering vaccines to the
over-fives.
Revealing the advice to the Senedd,
Morgan said it was a “shame and per-
plexing” that the JCVI advice had “not
been published yet”.
She added: “I have received JCVI ad-
vice regarding the vaccination of all five
to 11-year-olds. I have agreed it, and we
are working with health boards on im-
plementing the offer.
“We await advice about whether the
most vulnerable cohorts should have a
further booster to protect them over
the spring and summer months.”
She acknowledged the low risk that
Covid-19 posed to children. Data for
England shows there is about one death
within 28 days of testing positive per
200,000 five to nine-year-olds.
Morgan added: “Of course, it’s likely
to have been a very difficult decision for
the JCVI, because generally, children
have a milder illness and fewer hospi-
talisations, but, of course, they have tobalance that against the prospect of
missing school. So, we have to consider
very different issues when it comes to
the vaccination of children as young as
five years old.”
She said children were expected to be
accompanied by an adult, who would
need to provide informed consent for
the vaccination.
Siblings would be able to have their
vaccinations at the same time and all
would be given at health centres rather
than schools, she said.
But she added the programme would
not be “a matter of urgency” because
the risk was low.
Morgan said the government was
waiting to hear from the JCVI whether
there would need to be a further
booster for older age groups in the
spring.
A government spokesman said: “We
are reviewing the JCVI’s advice as part
of wider decision-making ahead of the
publication of our long-term strategy
for living with Covid-19. More detail
will be set out shortly.”Oliver Wright Policy Editor
Matt Hancock failed to comply with
equality laws when he appointed a
Conservative peer to a senior role in the
government’s response to the coronavi-
rus, two judges have ruled.
The Runnymede Trust, a race equali-
ty think tank, took the government to
court over the process used to appoint
Baroness Harding of Winscombe as
interim executive chairwoman of the
National Institute for Health Protec-
tion in 2020. The think tank and the
campaign group the Good Law Project
claimed the appointment had been
conducted without “open competition”
and suggested that people “outside the
tight circle” in which Tory politicians
moved were not offered opportunities.
Lord Justice Singh and Mr Justice
Swift at the High Court dismissed this
central contention but did rule that
Hancock, health secretary at the time
of the appointment, had not complied
with a public-sector equality duty.
“What the... duty requires is not
necessarily a particular outcome; for
example, an open recruitment policy,”
they said. “[But] there must be some
evidence of what precisely the deci-sion-maker did in the circumstances of
these cases to discharge the obligation
when deciding the method by which
each relevant appointment was to be
made. We have considered... the evi-
dence filed on behalf of the defendants
and cannot find any such evidence.”Figures as of 6pm yesterday. Source: Our World in Data
(latest figures available) and gov.uk. Note: Selected countries.Daily
(Feb 14)
First dose
8,Boosters
(Feb 14)
32,Second
48.8mSecond
18,Total
37.8mFirst dose
52.5mPeople
vaccinated
in UKUAE 99% (23.9m)Portugal 94.8% (22.5m)Spain 87.7% (91.6m)Australia 85% (52.5m)Italy 83.7% (132.3m)France 80% (139.3m)Sweden 76.7% (20m)US 76% (547.4m)UK 77.3% (139.1m)How Britain comparesPercentage of population who have
received at least one vaccine dose
(total doses administered in brackets)Novak Djokovic insisted he was not an
antivaxer yesterday as medical experts
argued that his stance on Covid-19 jabs
could “cause harm” and undermine the
response to the pandemic.
The men’s world No 1 tennis player
said he was “never against vaccination”
as he spoke about his refusal to get a
jab in his first interview since he was
deported from Australia last month. He
was forced to leave Melbourne before
the Australian Open over concerns
about his vaccine status.
Djokovic told the BBC that he “sup-
ported the freedom to choose what you
put in your body”. He added: “I say that
everyone has the right to choose or act
to say what feels appropriate for them.
I have never said I was a part of that
[antivaccine] movement.”
The player, 34, said that his right to
choose what he does with his body was
more important to him than being
allowed to compete at tournaments.
Sajid Javid, the health secretary,
suggested that the only reason Djokov-
ic was able to return to playing tennis
was because of the success of the Covid-
19 vaccination programmes. He told the
BBC: “It’s interesting to note that Mr
Djokovic thinks it’s OK for sport spec-
tators, all his fans, to take the vaccine
that allows him to get back to play the
sport in front of them and earn millions
again, it’s OK for him to have them take
the vaccine, but the vaccine is not OK
for him. I think he should reflect on his
decision.”
Dominic Wilkinson, professor of
medical ethics at the University of
Oxford, said Djokovic could under-
mine the response to the pandemic
because his views are “enormously
influential” and may “reinforce beliefs”
among people oppose vaccinations.
He said Djokovic’s public statements
“will have the effect of supporting those
who are opposed to the vaccine”, even if
that is not his intention.
“When he comes out and says it in
such a public way, that does cause harm
because it potentially reinforces those
Novak Djolovic
said: “I keep my
mind open”News Coronavirus
Experts hit out at Djokovic as
Laurence Sleator, David Rose
Stuart Fraser Tennis Correspondent
beliefs among other people who aren’t,
like him, super-fit and healthy and who
may well be at serious risk of getting ill,”
he said.
Dr Peter English, a retired consultant
in communicable disease control, said
Djokovic’s opposition to jabs was “a
highly irrational choice, not compatible
with ‘having an open mind’, and strong-
ly indicative of being antivaccine”.
Julian Savulescu, professor of practi-
cal ethics at Oxford, believes that the
tennis star had been “vilified”.
“I think his extreme form of libertari-
anism is one that’s difficult to defend,”
he said. “But in the current circumstan-
ces, given that he has had Covid and
there are other ways of reducing his
risk, I think he should be allowed a
degree of freedom.”
Jonathan Ives, professor of empirical
bioethics at the University of Bristol,
said: “The ethically correct response to
Djokovic’s comments is not to cancel
him or to try to force him to take the
vaccine, it is to challenge his views and
advocate for safe and effective vaccines
more strongly.”
Djokovic was initially let into Austra-
lia last month with a medical exemp-
tion from having to provide proof of
vaccination but was then deported on
“health and good order grounds”.
During the BBC interview he did not
rule out the possibility of changing his
mind on jabs. “I keep my mind open,” he
said. “There is always a possibility
things will change in the future. As of
today, this is my decision.”
His country of birth, Serbia, has rela-
tively low rates of vaccination uptake,
with only 47 per cent of the population
thought to have received two doses,
compared with 71 per cent in the UK,
according to Our World in Data.
More evidence of the benefits of jabs
was published yesterday. An analysis of
the blood of unvaccinated people
infected with Omicron showed they
appeared to develop poor immune de-
fences against other variants. If vacci-
nated before infection, they retained
strong immunity against both Omicron
and other variants. The findings, from a
small study of 27 people in South Africa,
suggest that vaccination may be key to
future protection from emerging vari-
ants. The team behind the study said,
however, that their findings also imply
that it might be unwise to develop
Omicron-specific vaccines.
Djokovic expected to defend his
Wimbledon title, Sport, page 66
My lunch with Djokovic, TimesCovid-19 patients wait outside A&E at Caritas Medical Centre in Hong Kong asHow many have died?
Yesterday there were 234 deaths reported,
bringing the total number of deaths in the
past seven days to 1,163. The rolling
average number of daily deaths is 166.1,
down from 257.4 a day a week agoHow does 2021 compare?
There were 11,862 deaths from all causes
recorded in England and Wales in the
week to February 4, of which the
coronavirus accounted for 10.5 per cent.
The number of weekly deaths was 1,
lower than the five-year average for the
same time of year05,10,15,20,
2020/Apr Jul Oct JanApr Jul OctJan 2022Five-year averageThe national picture
How many are in hospital?
There are 12,304 patients in hospital being
treated. 393 patients are on ventilators. An
additional 1,110 patients have been
admitted, down 14 per cent in seven days
to Feb 11 when this data was last updated
Hospital admissionsHow many people have Covid-19?
There were 46,186 new cases reported
yesterday, bringing the cumulative total to
18,393,951 or 275.4 for every 1,000 people
27.6% decrease from seven days ago
(based on seven-day moving average)
Daily casesDeathsOct Jan
2021Apr Jul OctJan
202205001,Seven-day 1,
averageSeven-day
averageOct Jan
2021Apr Jul Oct Jan
202201,2,3,4,Oct Jan
2021Apr Jul Oct Jan
2022050,100,150,200,Seven-day
averageNational
R number
0.8 to 1.