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Watch Live: JCVI to deliver press conference on vaccinating children and young people
4 August 2021, 14:05 | Updated: 4 August 2021, 14:06
JCVI to deliver press conference on vaccinating children and young people | Watch LIVE
Professor Jonathan Van-Tam will lead a press conference on plans to extend the vaccination programme to children and young people. Watch it live here.
The Deputy Chief Medical Officer for England is expected to announce the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation's recommendation to roll out the coronavirus jabs to 16 and 17 year olds at 3.30pm today.
Prof Van-Tam is set to outline that healthy people of those ages will soon be offered doses, with their peers who have underlying health conditions putting them at higher risk of serious Covid infection having already had the chance to get jabbed.
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This caller wants her 12-year-old son jabbed
Under current advice, children aged 12 to 15 who have conditions that make them vulnerable to coronavirus can get the vaccine, as can people aged 12 to 17 who live with an immunosuppressed person.
It means more people will get a chance to become protected from coronavirus with England having dispensed with most of its legal restrictions and Scotland set to move "beyond level zero" from Monday.
LBC was told by Universities Minister Michelle Donelan on Wednesday that advice from the JCVI (Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation) on over-16s being vaccinated was "imminent".
"We have, throughout this pandemic, always adopted what the JCVI have said," she said.
"They are independent of government, but they are some of the leading scientists in this area, so it is important that we listen to them."
She went on to say: "I look forward to hearing from the JCVI imminently on what their latest decision is."
Watch the press conference in full at 3.30pm at the top of this page.
