But one Sage member said youngsters should not be vaccinated just to protect others.
Calum Semple told the BBC’s Radio 4 Today programme: “The risk of death is one in a million. That’s not a figure and plucking from the air, that’s a quantifiable risk.
“We know in wave one and wave two put together there were 12 deaths in children – in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, put together – and that is rare because there are about 13 to 14 million children in the UK.
“We’re talking about vaccinating children here mainly to protect public health and reduce transmission, and it’s accepted that teenagers for biologically more like adults are more likely to transmit.
“But the younger children really are not, they’re about a half to a third as likely to acquire the virus. And similarly to pass it on.
“So we’re now coming into really interesting ethical and moral debate here about vaccinating children for the benefit of others.”
