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Young people aged 16 or 17 will now be offered a second Covid jab, 12 weeks after their first.

Initially this age group was only offered one primary dose.

The government’s advisers, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), now recommends that 16 and 17-year-olds should come forward for a second dose of the Pfizer jab – which should be given at least 12 weeks after the first.

Meanwhile, all 12 to 15-year-olds in the UK are being offered a single Pfizer Covid jab.

Healthy children aged 12 to 17 are now being advised to wait 12 weeks after testing positive for coronavirus before having their Covid jab. Previously the advice was to leave a four-week gap.

The longer gap does not apply to children who are deemed at higher risk because of underlying health conditions, or because they live with vulnerable adults.

No. When the recommendation was made, Prof Chris Whitty, chief medical officer for England, said the vaccination would be an “offer”.

He said young people and their parents needed to be supported, and there should be no stigma attached to their choice.

Although parental consent is being sought, children under 16 who can prove they understand the risks and benefits can ask for the vaccine – or refuse it – if they disagree with their parents.

This important legal test of whether a child can consent to treatment is known as “Gillick competence”. It is named after a famous dispute in which a teenager wanted contraceptive advice without her mother’s consent.

In practice, it would be extremely unusual for a child under 13 to be judged Gillick-competent.

Teenagers aged 16 and 17 don’t need parental permission, unless there are exceptional circumstances.

It is hoped the measure will help prevent further disruption to their education.

Prof Whitty said absence from school “has been extraordinarily difficult for children” during the pandemic, particularly in deprived areas.

Vaccinating children should help keep cases down, although it won’t stop the spread of Covid in schools.

Evidence suggests a single jab cuts the risk of catching the Delta variant by about 55%. It also reduces the chances of getting very sick or spreading it to someone else.

All 16 and 17-year-olds will now be offered a second dose, 12 weeks after their first.

But the UK’s chief medical officers have said that a second dose for 12 to 15-year olds shouldn’t be considered before the spring term.

However, 12 to 15-year-olds will have two doses if they’re at higher risk, because of:

Children of the same age who live with people who have a suppressed immune system are also being offered two doses.

Under-18s are being given the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, although the Moderna vaccine has also been authorised for use in children in the UK.

There is no vaccine currently approved for under-12s in the UK.

No medicine is completely safe, and all are a balance of risk and benefit.

But the Pfizer jab wouldn’t have been approved for UK use if it wasn’t considered safe.

The vaccine has been linked to incredibly rare cases of inflammation of both the heart muscle (myocarditis), and the sac the heart beats inside (pericarditis). This was found to be more common in younger men, and to be more likely after a second dose.

Both Pfizer and Moderna are conducting trials of their vaccines on children as young as six months old.

Almost all children and young people are at very low risk from Covid-19.

Data for England suggests about 25 children died from Covid in the first 12 months of the pandemic.

The majority of them also had severe health problems, including complex neurodisabilities.

Only six had no recorded health conditions.

In the year to 31 August 2021, Public Health England statistics suggest there were about 50 deaths among under-19s.

Many countries are vaccinating children over the age of 12.

Correction 21 September 2021: An earlier version of this article wrongly implied that the Gillick competence test was named after a case involving a mother and daughter and this line has been amended.