My first idea was "they should start doing Covid vaccinations in the gym like they do with the polio and tetanus jabs". The fact that it's the Pfizer vaccine and it needs to be stored at -70C is a bit of a problem. They could do school trips to the local hospital though.
That'd be an interesting permission slip.
There might also be some way to do portable freezers, though; I’d assume that some of the local GP-based sites initially administering Pfizer in the early stages of the vaccine rollout certainly don’t have deep freezers under normal circumstances, so I don’t see why they couldn’t set something up in your average sports hall or drama studio like they often do for other vaccinations already performed in school. For example, I had my HPV vaccine at school in Year 9, and girls are given the cervical cancer vaccine at some stage.
Yeah, that may work. The current schedule for teenagers includes the HPV vaccine in year 8 (which also does cervical cancer - this was girls only when we were in that year but it is now both genders), at year 9 they do the 3-in-1 teenage booster for tetanus, diptheria and polio as well as the MenACWY vaccine. If they added Covid to the childhood vaccination program then I presume it would be in year 8 as they are already injecting both arms in year 9.
Ah, I clearly didn’t have the HPV jab in Year 8, then, as I only ever remember having one set of jabs in Year 9, and I think it may have been the 3-in-1 booster and the MenACWY vaccine in hindsight!
For now they will want to do everyone they can but I would assume that from next year onwards they would want to deal with the next year of students as it comes because they wouldn't want to risk a drop in immunity if a small amount of Covid survives, there have been cases in recent years where outbreaks of measles and mumps have occurred due to low immunity in children.
I know that other vaccine makers are going even younger; AstraZeneca is running a trial on 6-17 year olds, and I know that Pfizer has now started a new trial on children as young as 6 months, so the COVID jab could well become a childhood jab like the MMR vaccine and the measles vaccine, which some scientists have suggested could provide them with lifelong immunity from COVID in a similar manner to what the MMR jab and the measles jab do.
Interesting... when I had my first dose of the Pfizer vaccine on Saturday, the arm pain caused by my jab felt more like muscular pain than burning; the best way I can think of to describe it is that it felt kind of like when you crick your neck, but if the sensation was moved to your arm. It really was very sore whenever I moved it for a day or two, and my arm felt really very heavy and painful to move. I also felt generally quite achy and tired the day after having it, although this seems quite normal. My side effects cleared up very quickly, though, and I was back to normal 2-3 days after having it.
My arm was exactly the same after I had my first dose of the Pfizer vaccine, Matt. Hurt slightly when I stretched/moved it, which wasn't exactly ideal when I often have to do a lot of moving stuff around with my arms & hands at work!
Wasn't a major problem, thankfully.
That is very helpful and will buy the vaccine manufacturers some time if they have to adjust the vaccine for new variants.
