I agree with Dr Tim Devine (Letters, 26 January) that vaccinating small children is unnecessary. The almost hysterical push to get them all jabbed is very strange.
In The Echo’s article ‘Children: to vax or not to vax’ (26 January), you quote from the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI), saying ‘The primary aim of vaccination is to give the body an opportunity to develop strategies to respond quickly and effectively to the COVID virus, in advance of getting infected.’
But a healthy child already has a strategy – it’s called an immune system. As ATAGI also says, ‘most children… are asymptomatic or experience a mild illness.’
The anxiety about children going back to school makes no sense. Does the Government think that children have been isolated in their homes during the summer holidays? No, they’ve been out and about playing with friends and cousins. Do they think their parents haven’t been going to the supermarket to buy food? Or to the gym, to exercise? Do they think that grandparents haven’t been playing with or looking after their grandchildren?
Do they think that teachers have been locked in a sterile room for six weeks and are suddenly going to be more vulnerable in their workplace? Teachers are parents and grandparents too.
As for the twice weekly Rapid Antigen Test (RAT), that’s just pie in the sky – especially for children who have sensory issues. A mouth swab may have been feasible, but a twice-weekly nose prod is beyond a joke, and would cause extreme distress for many children, parents and carers.
RATs for school children is a program that has just been abandoned in the UK. You’d think our Government would take note and learn, but it seems that they make all these decisions on the fly and then don’t have the courage to admit a mistake and change course.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
