Why I'm delighted that my 12-year-old daughter signed up for the Oxford vaccine trial

Currently, the roll-out of the Pfizer and Oxford-Astrazeneca vaccines is exclusive to older adults in the UK. However, scientists at Oxford Vaccine Group are now looking at how the vaccine could work for children.

Last month, the group started a vaccine trial in 150 children aged 12-17, and hopes to extend the trial to 150 more children aged 6-11, following the results of the first trial. In total, 240 of these volunteers will receive the Covid-19 vaccine and the rest a control meningitis vaccine.

On the University of Oxford’s website, researchers explain the need for the children’s trial: “We are not sure about the role that children play in transmitting the disease and this is something that we will find out more about as the pandemic progresses. But it is likely that vaccination will help in slowing the spread of the disease and it may be possible that vaccinating children will help with this too.”

Parents could sign their children up to the trial on Saturday, February 13; by the following day, the spaces had all been filled. Yet despite this high uptake, a quick search on Twitter of the ‘Oxford child vaccine trials’ shows an overwhelmingly negative response, with parents writing that they would never allow their children to take part in such a trial.

“I totally appreciate that people are worried about it - there was a bit of me that was worried,” says James Hobson, whose daughter, Sylvia, 12, is part of the children’s trial and has already had her first dose.

The concern, he says, is just parental instinct. “It's just the panic any parent would feel, putting their child into a situation where there’s any risk at all - it could be crossing the road, it could be eating a peanut butter sandwich, it could be letting them play with a strange dog. There’s always an element of risk,” he says.

“I think one of the biggest problems with this whole situation isn’t science versus not-science or vaccination versus not-vaccination. It’s understanding risk.”

In effect, “there’s a risk in anything you do,” he says. “If you have a general anaesthetic, there’s a tiny risk that you won’t wake up.”

It’s with this kind of rationality, and his firm belief in science, that James overcame his worries. “I had to sit myself down and have a little word and say: this is safe, this has been proved to be safe time and time again.”

James’ level-headed approach seems to have been inherited by his daughter, Sylvia, who joins her father in our Skype call from their home near Oxford. When I ask if she was afraid of being part of a trial, she simply says that “it’s not that dangerous because it’s been done before”.

James first heard about the children’s trial from a neighbour, who is a clinician. He asked Sylvia if she wanted to join. “I thought it might feel empowering,” he says.

For the last year he felt “like there was nothing you could do to actually get back at the virus, or contribute to the process, so I felt really pleased that there was opportunity for [children] to decide to take part in that.”

While James and Sylvia’s family have been “universally positive”, James has received some criticism online. “I’ve had a lot of negative comments with people saying ‘why would you vaccinate children? They’re not at risk,’” he says. “But there are some children who are at risk”.

Touching on this, Andrew Pollard, Professor of Paediatric Infection and Immunity, and Chief Investigator on the Oxford vaccine trial, said in a press release: “While most children are relatively unaffected by coronavirus and are unlikely to become unwell with the infection, it is important to establish the safety and immune response to the vaccine in children and young people as some children may benefit from vaccination.”

Children with underlying health conditions, for instance, may be more at risk. “Some of them have died, and some more will die,” James says, “so [the trial] can help prevent that”.

It could also help those children to have more normal lives, as many are still stuck indoors. “Hopefully this is going to help some of the kids who are shielding,” James says. “There are potentially quite a few young people who are stuck at home through most of this, and in making sure that it’s safe to vaccinate children, they might be able to get out of the house”.

The children's trials are important because the future of the pandemic is still uncertain, according to Grace Li, paediatric clinical research fellow at the Oxford Vaccine Group. “Our understanding of how children are affected by the coronavirus continues to evolve," she says. "This study will play an important role in helping to protect children in the future,” she says.

James agrees that the children’s trials are necessary because the evolution of the virus is so uncertain. “We don’t know what’s going to come with this disease. Things are looking positive at the moment but there could be a mutation that makes it more dangerous to children. There could be a situation where it becomes more apparent that children are spreading it to other people, potentially, and we could find that the vaccine stops the spread from children to other people.

“All of those things could happen and we might end up in a situation where it’s really critical to vaccinate children.”

For Sylvia, she is simply happy that she is able to play her part. When I ask her why she volunteered, she replies that she felt "it could help a little bit it. And if it helps things get back to normal quicker, then that’s good.”