lightsaber wrote:

When is the plan for major child vaccination efforts? I saw one country, but as the purchases are the union and borders will reopen, what is the EU plan?
Lightsaber

SomebodyInTLS wrote:

There is disturbing silence on this issue from the UK government - who actually seem to be doing everything they can to deliberately infect every child under 18. All recent talk of regulations and vaccine programmes studiously ignored any suggestion that schools will be affected or children vaccinated - and now they've rolled back all the existing measures in schools.

They've managed to avoid any discussion in the media here but it genuinely looks like the policy is: vaccines for adults, "herd immunity" for kids.

marcelh wrote:

lightsaber wrote:

When is the plan for major child vaccination efforts? I saw one country, but as the purchases are the union and borders will reopen, what is the EU plan?
Lightsaber

There is no EU plan, because the EU hasn’t a mandate to make decisions about health care.

lightsaber wrote:

marcelh wrote:

lightsaber wrote:

When is the plan for major child vaccination efforts? I saw one country, but as the purchases are the union and borders will reopen, what is the EU plan?
Lightsaber

There is no EU plan, because the EU hasn’t a mandate to make decisions about health care.

Yet we are in the EU vaccination strategy plan. The EU certifies vaccines and purchases the vaccines. So in my opinion, they own the mandate.

JJJ wrote:

lightsaber wrote:

marcelh wrote:

There is no EU plan, because the EU hasn’t a mandate to make decisions about health care.

Yet we are in the EU vaccination strategy plan. The EU certifies vaccines and purchases the vaccines. So in my opinion, they own the mandate.

A thread name in a.net doesn't dictate policy.

The EU only started purchasing vaccines because at some point member states decided it made sense to piggyback on early orders made by a few countries and not have members fight each other for a place in line for certain scarce products (which turned out to be a very real concern).

Yes, the EMA makes vaccine recommendations but the ultimate word relies on member states (like Hungary buying Russian vaccines and Bulgaria dragging their feet on MRNA vaccines on cost grounds).

You'll find vaccination patterns also differ country by country because it's a national (and in some countries even regional) policy.

lightsaber wrote:

For children's vaccines, the EMA will determine when available and what quantity.

I believe children are a major vector of Delta. We are seeing children bringing it home in the YSA:
https://miami.cbslocal.com/2021/07/19/h ... ldren/?amp

With tourism restarted, the EU had better have a strategy.

lightsaber wrote:

We're going to have to agree to disagree since the EU purchases and certifies the vaccines. For children's vaccines, the EMA will determine when available and what quantity.

lightsaber wrote:

JJJ wrote:

lightsaber wrote:

Yet we are in the EU vaccination strategy plan. The EU certifies vaccines and purchases the vaccines. So in my opinion, they own the mandate.

A thread name in a.net doesn't dictate policy.

The EU only started purchasing vaccines because at some point member states decided it made sense to piggyback on early orders made by a few countries and not have members fight each other for a place in line for certain scarce products (which turned out to be a very real concern).

Yes, the EMA makes vaccine recommendations but the ultimate word relies on member states (like Hungary buying Russian vaccines and Bulgaria dragging their feet on MRNA vaccines on cost grounds).

You'll find vaccination patterns also differ country by country because it's a national (and in some countries even regional) policy.

We're going to have to agree to disagree since the EU purchases and certifies the vaccines. For children's vaccines, the EMA will determine when available and what quantity.

I believe children are a major vector of Delta. We are seeing children bringing it home in the YSA:
https://miami.cbslocal.com/2021/07/19/h ... ldren/?amp

With tourism restarted, the EU had better have a strategy.

Lightsaber

UK children will not be offered Covid jab unless vulnerable

rare but serious adverse events, including myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle) and pericarditis (inflammation of the membrane around the heart)

lightsaber wrote:

JJJ wrote:

lightsaber wrote:

Yet we are in the EU vaccination strategy plan. The EU certifies vaccines and purchases the vaccines. So in my opinion, they own the mandate.

A thread name in a.net doesn't dictate policy.

The EU only started purchasing vaccines because at some point member states decided it made sense to piggyback on early orders made by a few countries and not have members fight each other for a place in line for certain scarce products (which turned out to be a very real concern).

Yes, the EMA makes vaccine recommendations but the ultimate word relies on member states (like Hungary buying Russian vaccines and Bulgaria dragging their feet on MRNA vaccines on cost grounds).

You'll find vaccination patterns also differ country by country because it's a national (and in some countries even regional) policy.

We're going to have to agree to disagree since the EU purchases and certifies the vaccines. For children's vaccines, the EMA will determine when available and what quantity.

par13del wrote:

SomebodyInTLS wrote:

They've managed to avoid any discussion in the media here but it genuinely looks like the [UK] policy is: vaccines for adults, "herd immunity" for kids.

Do we have studies from any country saying that children cannot get infected with Covid, and if they do get Covid is there any study saying they cannot transmit Covid?
In relation to children my issue is who will the children infect, those in boarding school will be in protected situations, for the other 99.99999999 percent of kids they will be infecting their parents who will not be isolating from their kids, especially the youngest set. I think we can all agree that it is easier to protect the adult population without a vaccine for a period of time, but not children. Children if sent to school will get infected and will take the virus home to infect the parents, the unvaccinated parents will have a rough time, what else is there in that equation?

SomebodyInTLS wrote:

Well that's why it seems to me that the whole thing is about deliberately infecting all kids, assuming most adults will have been vaccinated in the mean time. And as others mentioned just above it's coming out that the policy is indeed not to vaccinate kids despite the opportunity being there.

the Guardian wrote:

Sage adviser claims ministers trying to get as many as possible infected with Covid

Exclusive: Prof Robert West says rhetoric about caution is ‘a way of putting blame on public’

A scientist advising the government has accused ministers of allowing infections to rip through the younger population in an effort to bolster levels of immunity before the NHS faces winter pressures.

SomebodyInTLS wrote:

SomebodyInTLS wrote:

Well that's why it seems to me that the whole thing is about deliberately infecting all kids, assuming most adults will have been vaccinated in the mean time. And as others mentioned just above it's coming out that the policy is indeed not to vaccinate kids despite the opportunity being there.

the Guardian wrote:

Sage adviser claims ministers trying to get as many as possible infected with Covid

Exclusive: Prof Robert West says rhetoric about caution is ‘a way of putting blame on public’

A scientist advising the government has accused ministers of allowing infections to rip through the younger population in an effort to bolster levels of immunity before the NHS faces winter pressures.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... ser-claims

"in acknowledging that the EU did not get everything right, we can see how the Union demonstrated a much more valuable skill - the ability to identify mistakes, learn from them and find solutions."

"The real work was being done behind the scenes by a man called Thierry Breton, the European Commissioner for the Internal Market. Breton was tasked with addressing a part of the EU's problem that has been much less discussed - the blocks and deficiencies within the EU's own vaccine production supply chain."

sabenapilot wrote:

Six EU states overtake UK Covid vaccination rate

Malta, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Denmark and Ireland overtake UK in fully jabbed percentages

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... lout-slows

Boeing74741R wrote:

That means 65.1% of the French population has had at least one dose and 54.3% are fully vaccinated (a slightly higher percentage than Our World In Data’s, because France considers people who have recovered from Covid fully vaccinated after one dose)."

Goes to show how numbers should be treated with caution.

sabenapilot wrote:

There seems to be a massive misunderstanding as to what the EU does, especially by outsiders who look at the map produced by the ECDC and see the whole of the EU as following one strategy.

As has been pointed out before, the vaccination stategy is not an EU competence at all, but rather conducted at the memberstates' level (in some states like Germany or Belgium, it is further devolved to their regional governments even), often with widespread differences amongst them, even within the memberstates itself.

The EU is merely coordinating vaccine purchases to avoid internal competition amongst EU memberstates (as we've seen demonstrated by a break-away UK) and trying to streamline the rules for cross border travel, but other than that, the EC is not deciding who gets what type of vaccine, nor after how many weeks a second shot is to be given (if any): all of that is decided solely by national/regional governments. The EC can advice and coordinate, but it can not enforce nor impose.

Failure to understand that is failing to understand the unique legal set-up of the EU, which is neither a federal nor a confederal model, it is a model 'sui generis', meaning it has full and absolute sovereignty on certain clearly defined domains (as if the memberstates do not exist any longer), whereas at the same time it has litterally zero competence in others domains as if it did not exist itself.

As to the title of this topic: keep in mind this topic was created by splitting off a discussion from another highly debated topic with the title given to it by a moderator...

Dutchy wrote:

It surprises me to hear that other countries have other definitions.

sabenapilot wrote:

Another interesting issue is that A-Z is not authorized by the US FDA, so people who are fully vaccinated with this vaccine are not considered so by the US if and when the US opens up again to vaccinated people from abroad. Most EU countries halted the use of A)Z months ago, but not so in the UK, so this issue might become one of the greatest concerns to British travelers. and the British government: a vaccinate which isn't good enough to allow travel to the US with!

sabenapilot wrote:

Most EU countries halted the use of A)Z months ago, but not so in the UK, so this issue might become one of the greatest concerns to British travelers. and the British government: a vaccinate which isn't good enough to allow travel to the US with!

tommy1808 wrote:

Dutchy wrote:

It surprises me to hear that other countries have other definitions.

which may lead to surprises when traveling, since outside the EU few countries consider that fully vaccinated, just like few countries recognize cross-vaccination as fully vaccinated. So, with one dose of JJ you are fully vaccinated, with 1x AZ + 1x mRNA you just have two first doses.

best regards
Thomas

Francoflier wrote:

sabenapilot wrote:

Another interesting issue is that A-Z is not authorized by the US FDA, so people who are fully vaccinated with this vaccine are not considered so by the US if and when the US opens up again to vaccinated people from abroad. Most EU countries halted the use of A)Z months ago, but not so in the UK, so this issue might become one of the greatest concerns to British travelers. and the British government: a vaccinate which isn't good enough to allow travel to the US with!

The fact that it is not authorized by the FDA does not mean that it won't be accepted for inbound travelers.
The FDA did not authorize it on safety grounds, not for lack of efficacy.
AZ was suspected of potentially causing thrombosis for some people and since the US had a sufficient supply of other vaccines, they decided not to bother taking the risk.
I'm sure they can still recognize that it is an effective vaccine however and that a lot of prospective travelers to the US will have had it.

At the end of the day, and with regards to the other issue you mentioned, I wonder if an antibody test would not be a better requirement for crossing borders than a vaccination certificate...

Boeing74741R wrote:

tommy1808 wrote:

Dutchy wrote:

It surprises me to hear that other countries have other definitions.

which may lead to surprises when traveling, since outside the EU few countries consider that fully vaccinated, just like few countries recognize cross-vaccination as fully vaccinated. So, with one dose of JJ you are fully vaccinated, with 1x AZ + 1x mRNA you just have two first doses.

best regards
Thomas

I think it's got the potential to become messy in the coming months as global travel slowly starts to open up once again. I'm not a scientist, so I'm not going to argue over what defines fully vaccinated and whether it's right to class a recently-infected person as fully vaccinated, but in the case of the Janssen vaccine I'm content that someone is fully vaccinated if they received that instead of the others given just one dose is required.

What's also another issue is booster jabs being a prerequisite for entry. I see Austria (and I think Croatia) is putting a time limit on time passed since the second dose was received, but given not everywhere is yet doing a booster programme and given there's debate about whether it's needed or not, this is another potential messy situation looming.