The National Health Service in England is preparing for the possible rollout of vaccines to 12 to 15-year-olds from 6 September, according to media reports. NHS trusts are being told they must have plans ready by 4pm on Friday, The Daily Telegraph reported.

The Department of Health has said no decisions have yet been made to extend the vaccine programme to younger people, but said they “continue to plan for a range of scenarios”. So far, vaccines have been offered to people aged 16 and above and children aged 12 to 15 with a high-risk condition or a vulnerable family member. The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) is still deliberating on broadening the rollout further. Children aged 12 and over are already being vaccinated in the US, Canada, France and the Netherlands.

“Either you’re going to be exposed to covid without any protection or you can be exposed and have a vaccine. And we should be offering teens that vaccine so they have that protection before going back into schools,” Devi Sridhar at the University of Edinburgh told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

While younger people are more likely to experience myocarditis, a rare heart side effect, after receiving some of the covid-19 vaccines, a study in the US released earlier this month found that myocarditis is more common after coronavirus infection than vaccination. 

Other coronavirus news

Japan has suspended the use of 1.63 million doses of Moderna’s covid-19 vaccine after reports that some vials had been contaminated with “particulate matter”. Japan and Moderna say the move is a precaution and that no safety or efficacy issues have been identified. According to a health ministry official, Takeda, the pharmaceutical company that is distributing the Moderna shots in Japan, first learned of the issue on 16 August, but did not notify the government until 25 August, because it needed time to find out which vials were affected and where they had been distributed.

Trials have shown that a booster shot of Johnson & Johnson’s covid-19 vaccine produces a big increase in antibody levels, the company has announced. The J&J vaccine has been administered as a single dose since it was approved for emergency use in the US in February. Trial volunteers who received a second dose six to eight months after the first saw antibody levels rise nine times higher than 28 days after the first shot, the company said.