To clarify that 50% figure: According to [official figures](https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/vaccinations) -- see “Vaccination uptake, by report date”—about 63% of the eligible population in the UK has had two vaccine doses, and about 85% have had two. But it’s about 50% of the whole population, including infants and children, and infants and children are not being vaccinated.
So far as I can tell, the UK government’s intention is just to let every schoolchild in the UK get COVID-19. At least, there’s no serious plan to start vaccinating them any time soon, and in the face of rapidly increasing case numbers in schools I’m hearing much more ”… so we have to find a way to let schools send fewer pupils home when cases occur, to keep children in school” than ”… so we have to get stricter about sending pupils home when cases occur, to reduce the spread”.
It’s just as well children seem to be less badly harmed than adults by getting COVID-19. (Though they are certainly not guaranteed no serious harm, and given the enormous numbers of children likely to get it I suspect the absolute number of cases of serious harm will be pretty large.)
Good call out. I don’t know how contagious Covid/Delta is with children, but my intuition is that it is less contagious, which means your clarification is good news.
To clarify that 50% figure: According to [official figures](https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/vaccinations) -- see “Vaccination uptake, by report date”—about 63% of the eligible population in the UK has had two vaccine doses, and about 85% have had two. But it’s about 50% of the whole population, including infants and children, and infants and children are not being vaccinated.
So far as I can tell, the UK government’s intention is just to let every schoolchild in the UK get COVID-19. At least, there’s no serious plan to start vaccinating them any time soon, and in the face of rapidly increasing case numbers in schools I’m hearing much more ”… so we have to find a way to let schools send fewer pupils home when cases occur, to keep children in school” than ”… so we have to get stricter about sending pupils home when cases occur, to reduce the spread”.
It’s just as well children seem to be less badly harmed than adults by getting COVID-19. (Though they are certainly not guaranteed no serious harm, and given the enormous numbers of children likely to get it I suspect the absolute number of cases of serious harm will be pretty large.)
Good call out. I don’t know how contagious Covid/Delta is with children, but my intuition is that it is less contagious, which means your clarification is good news.