COVID19 Child Vaccine Now Available for 16-17 yr olds in UK - What is Gillick Competency? - Dr Gill

hello and welcome back to my kitchen my name is dr james gill and this is a an addendum if you will to our news segment that would have previously gone at the end of our latest um uh a to z of the nhs video on erectile dysfunction which you can see here however the news that's come out this week i think is sufficient that we actually put out a separate video on its own rather than just tagging it into an existing topic so what are we going to be talking about here well the big noise in the uk from the jcvi that's the joint committee on vaccines and immunizations has now ruled that the fisa vaccine is appropriate for 16 to 17 year olds and that is going to bring with it a few questions both in terms of accessing the jab and also why has it taken so long to come out with this new update so with that in mind let's have a look at some of the numbers the data and see what the discussion debate over the last few days has been about when it comes to um vaccinating children with regard to covert 19 there has to be that answer of a question why have we waited so long you know more than um 18 months into the pandemic before we've said yes it's appropriate to vaccinate the youngest age groups well the answer is quite simple really children are our most you know precious age group i don't think anybody would argue with that and as a result we've wanted to make sure that we have an abundance of caution in making sure that there's no high likelihood of any significant medical problems from these vaccines and we can say that in america they've been using the fisa vaccine already with this age group and have had no significant signals coming back similarly the vaccine has also been used in europe i know we used to be part of europe let's not go down that one but again we've been shown that broadly these vaccines are very very safe for children okay fine so we've got a vaccine we know that it's particularly safe somebody is going to ask the question why do we need to worry about the vaccine anyway for children because they don't get significant covert well that is true however low suffering isn't no suffering and i think it will be very surprising to find parents or individuals who will be quite happy to pass up a way of protecting and looking after that child in favor of probably putting them at some degree of discomfort and distress from you know a pandemic causing virus so i think most people would certainly opt to protect their children where possible but even though covid is relatively low risk for children and particularly the 16 to 17 age group we are seeing an uptick in long covered effect in the sacred group so actually it's perhaps not simply about protecting against covert here but it's also about protecting from any long-term complications of catching that virus so let's give you some numbers then in that case so in terms of coronavirus to reiterate that it is relatively mild in children um we get 1 in 60 000 children or cases are actually considered to be severe and in terms of deaths these are exceptionally low we've had 25 deaths for children due to covert 19 in the last 12 months but again just because somebody's not having a severe infection doesn't mean that we shouldn't look to protect them from any infection and the long-term complications potentially of those infections and i think at that point it's probably reasonable to say what are any potential side effects from the vaccine well children are likely to feel more beaten up for want of a better phrase when it comes to the vaccine people always say that the flu vaccine makes them feel a bit rough for a day or two afterwards and certainly we've seen that with vaccines ourselves when it comes to covid19 when i had the jab i was you know very tired for about two days after that it was fine subsequently now there's a reason behind that the uh the vaccines for covert 19 have been made universal so every vaccine has to be able to work from the eldest members of our population all the way down to the youngest and that's different from if we look at something like the flu vaccine where we actually have different vaccines for different age groups now the reason behind that is as we get older our immune system becomes less active less effective thus we need to have ways of turbocharging the body's immune reaction to the vaccine so the standard vaccine will work very well with an elderly person however when it comes down to people in the 30s age group and 20s and then the children because we've got these elements in the vaccine to turbo charge it it does mean that we get a stronger immune reaction thus tend to feel a little bit rougher than when some of the more elderly members of the population have the vaccine so it is to be expected but again that's going to be significantly less than having you know problems with covid now no medication is 100 safe there is always risks so even though i'm very much in favor of the vaccinations being rolled out we need to discuss what if any are the risks with using the vaccine well at the moment when it comes to children one potential risk with the the vaccine is myocarditis or pericarditis so inflammation of the heart itself or the sac that goes round the heart in both of these cases so far we've had a recording of nine in one million vaccinations so we know it's possible but again we're going to be looking at a transient event something that will recover and is likely to have much less long-term problems than being infected by covid one of the reasons it's actually quite important to vaccinate this 16 to 17 age group is because they're a very social age group and a very mobile age group meaning that they're an excellent vector a way of moving the virus around and we have regrettably seen that in schools where one child will have covert and then we end up shutting down a class or a year group for various lengths of time over the pandemic i mean i've personally been affected with that as my sister as a teacher and that's where the importance here of the vaccine comes in we know with regard to sociological um or society level observations that education is the magic bullet for you know health problems um and so many long-term problems that can affect us as adults thus getting children vaccinated means that we are not going to be getting the same level of disruption to their education and we're likely to have a much less harm to them across their entire lifespan due to this hugely important age um when they're learning so much and i think that will be the same thing but even more important when we come to uh vaccinating even below age 16 or 17. so whilst children are highly unlikely to get severe covered they certainly can still be infected and can have very unpleasant and you know distressing symptoms and it's right that when we have a potential way of preventing that suffering that they have the opportunity to choose to opt for these vaccines and hopefully prevent suffering i think it's really important that we acknowledge the autonomy of this age group and that's very important legally the 16 to 17 year year group is considered to have the potential for fraser or gillig competency now this is something that we go through at medical school basically if a child is able to weigh the benefits of having a procedure or a medication against the risks of having that procedure then they're able to choose to go forward with that procedure or medication should they wish to without parental consent now it's exceptionally important if you're going to go for you know the vaccine and things like that you discuss it at home and make sure that everybody you know understands what's going on and as somebody in that age group knows your wishes i certainly wouldn't advocate for people doing things in an underhanded way however if there are issues at home at 16 to 17 year old year group does have a legal basis where they can opt for opt for a vaccine without getting parental consent well i think we'll probably leave things there obviously just to promote if you haven't had chance to get the vaccine at the moment please do so vaccines reduce your risk of getting uh covered severely um they're 80 percent affected with just that one dose moving up to 96 with the fisa vaccine and they're they're going to be the thing that gets us out of this pandemic and allows us to return to a new normal i do think it's important we say there that vaccines aren't an absolute panacea they protect you from severe covert but they don't stop you being infected which is why when cases are rising up it's important to make sure we're still being very cautious about our social distancing and things but thinking about how we move towards a new normal certainly being double vaccinated myself i'm continuing to wear a mask in very social situations so going to the supermarket and areas where there's close proximity with other people i'll also given i'm working in the healthcare be wearing a mask and insisting that people do in clinics with me however moving forwards we do have to learn to live with covid so i will be using the mask less commonly when i'm out and about but just in those very socially constrained areas well i hope this has been useful for yourselves do drop some comments or any questions you might have about the vaccine down below and we'll hopefully have a good natured and respectful discussion about what's going on at the moment with the new coveted vaccines take care stay safe and we'll see you around cheerio