Scottish Government would ‘move swiftly’ to vaccinate 16 and 17-year-olds

Deputy First Minister John Swinney says “early progress” will be made on vaccinating 16 and 17-year-olds if the go ahead is given today.

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) is expected to recommend offering a jab to all teens in this age category.

Experts stopped short of making the move last month, saying they were still assessing the benefits and risks.

Mr Swinney told BBC’s Good Morning Scotland that the Scottish Government has been pressing for that to happen and made a “strong case” to the JCVI.

He added: “We’ll take that forward really very swiftly to make sure we can make early progress on that and working on a four nations basis with vaccine supplies.

“We’ll make early progress on vaccinating 16-17-year-olds if that is the decision of the JCVI but the arrangements for face coverings in schools will be maintained as the first minister announced yesterday.”

On Tuesday, the First Minister told the Scottish Parliament the government was waiting on advice from the JCVI on vaccinating 16-17-year-olds.

Professor Linda Bauld, one of Scotland’s leading public health experts, said earlier this week that the UK’s decision on vaccinating children made it an “outlier across a number of high-income countries”. 

Returning to school

The majority of the mitigations that were in place for schools across Scotland before the summer holidays will remain in place for up to six weeks.

This means face masks will continue to be worn in schools despite criticism from Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross that this will “limit people’s learning and prevent a return to normality in classrooms”.

The Test and Protect service will also change for under 18s with whole school classes no longer being told to self-isolate.

Instead, a targeted approach will be adopted to identify children and younger people who are higher risk close contacts.