Coronavirus: Vaccination

(asked on 22nd September 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Public Health England document entitled Easy-read consent form for children, young people or parents and carers, what the evidential basis is for the statement that there is a small chance of catching covid-19 if you have been vaccinated; and how the Government defines small in that context.


Answered by
Maggie Throup Portrait
Maggie Throup
This question was answered on 18th October 2021

The evidence is based on published literature. In a recent trial of 2,260 adolescents aged 12 to 15 years old three COVID-19 cases were noted within 11 days after dose one among Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine recipients, as compared with 12 cases among those who had not received the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. There were no cases more than seven days after two doses, which is the recommended course for at-risk children. The study, ‘Safety, Immunogenicity, and Efficacy of the BNT162b2 Covid-19 Vaccine in Adolescents’, is available at the following link:

https://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMoa2107456

In this context, the definition of ‘small’ means that although individuals could still be infected with the virus, they are less likely to develop symptoms of COVID-19 after vaccination.

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