COVID vaccine invites for 12 to 15-year-olds in England being sent out next week
The government has accepted the recommendation from the UK’s chief medical officers that children aged 12 to 15 should be offered a first dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine and invitations will start being sent out next week.
Making the announcement in the Commons, Vaccines Minister Nadhim Zahawi said: “We will now move with the same sense of urgency we’ve had at every point in our vaccination programme.”
Health Secretary Sajid Javid said: “I have accepted the recommendation from the Chief Medical Officers to expand vaccination to those aged 12 to 15 – protecting young people from catching COVID-19, reducing transmission in schools and keeping pupils in the classroom.
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Jabs for kids: ‘Benefits exceed risks’
“I am very grateful for the expert advice I have received from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation and UK Chief Medical Officers.”
It comes after the chief medical officers said offering jabs to 12 to 15-year-olds would be a “useful tool” in reducing disruption to their education.
In their advice to the government, they said they were making the recommendation on “public health grounds” and it was “likely vaccination will help reduce transmission of COVID-19 in schools”.
The move means around three million children will now be eligible for the jab, which is expected to be administered through schools.
The consent of parents, guardians and carers will be sought prior to vaccination, but the Health Secretary told Sky News last week that children would get the “final say” over whether or not they get a jab.
Addressing this in his statement to MPs, Mr Zahawi said: “In the rare event that there is a situation a parent does not consent but the child or the teenager wants to have the vaccine, then there is a process by which the school age vaccination clinician will bring initially the parent and the child to see whether they can reach consensus and if not, if the child is deemed to be competent, then the vaccination will take place.”
The minister told the Commons that vaccines “are our best defence against this virus”.
“Our jabs have already prevented over 112,000 deaths, more than 143,000 hospitalisations and over 24 million infections,” he said.
“They have built a vast wall of defence for the British people.”
He added that there is a “comprehensive” surveillance strategy in place to monitor the safety of the COVID vaccines and continued: “It is important to remember that our teenagers have shown great public spirit at every point in this pandemic. They have stuck to the rules so that lives could be saved and people kept safe.
“They have been some of the most enthusiastic proponents of vaccines. This is at least in part because they have experienced the damage that comes with outbreaks of COVID-19.”
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Decision on vaccinating children ‘more difficult’
Labour’s shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said the party backed the government’s approach, but urged ministers to provide as much information to parents as they can.
He also posed a series of questions to the vaccines minister, including whether parental consent would be needed and whether the jabs would be administered through an existing NHS programme for other vaccines for children.
Mr Zahawi said in response that the NHS was “incredibly efficient and well equipped” in providing inoculations to children already and that an existing programme which visits schools would be used for the COVID jabs.
But Tory MP Dr Caroline Johnson said she was not “comfortable” with vaccinating teenagers to avoid “educational disruption”, while former party leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith warned of the risk of “family disputes” over whether children should take up the offer of a jab.
Conservative MP and former minister Steve Baker urged the government to guarantee that “a child’s ability to receive an education equally with their peers will never be linked to their vaccination status”.
Mr Zahawi said in response: “That will not be used in any way. The whole purpose of this is to accept the clinical advice and protect children.”
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What do teenagers think of COVID vaccine?
The recommendation from the CMOs followed a decision from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation not to recommend mass vaccination of 12 to 15-year-olds on health grounds alone.
Explaining the rationale for their decision, the JCVI said the virus poses a very low risk to healthy children and inoculating them would only provide a marginal benefit.
But they did say that other issues, such as education, should be taken into account and considered by the CMOs in making their final decision.
Speaking earlier at a Downing Street news conference, the JCVI’s Professor Wei Shin Lim said there was “no conflict” between the stances of the JCVI and the CMOs, adding that the JCVI had looked at the question from a health perspective.
Mr Zahawi said further guidance would be sought from the JCVI before any decision is made on whether to offer second doses.
Speaking on the eve of Prime Minister Boris Johnson setting out his winter plan to manage COVID in the months to come, the vaccines minister told MPs that the government wanted to deliver an “ambitious” programme of booster jabs.
Ukraine’s financial regulator has proposed taxing certain crypto transactions as personal income at a rate of up to 23% but excluding crypto-to-crypto transactions and stablecoins.
Crypto transactions would be taxed at 18% with a 5% military levy on top as part of the proposed framework, released on April 8 by Ukraine’s National Securities and Stock Market Commission.
NSSMC Chairman Ruslan Magomedov said in an April 8 statement that “the issue of crypto taxes is not a hypothesis, but a reality that is fast approaching.”
He added that the agency created the framework to help lawmakers make an “informed resolution” by considering each suggestion’s advantages and disadvantages because “these aspects can have a critical impact on the market and tax liability.”
Under the NSSMC’s proposed crypto framework, a tax will be applied when crypto is cashed out for fiat currency or exchanged for goods or services.
Crypto-to-crypto transactions wouldn’t be taxed, bringing Ukraine in line with other European countries, including Austria and France, as well as crypto-friendly jurisdictions like Singapore, the NSSMC said.
The regulator says it “makes sense” to exclude stablecoins backed by foreign currencies or only apply a 5% or 9% tax because Ukraine’s tax code already excludes income from transactions in “foreign exchange values.”
A translated excerpt of the NSSMC’s report said stablecoins backed by foreign currencies could be exempt from taxation. Source: NSSMC
Mining, staking, hard forks and airdrops
Other crypto-related activities, such as mining, staking and airdrops, are also addressed in the framework which floated a few options for taxation.
The NSSMC said crypto mining is generally considered a business activity, but there might be a general tax-free limit for certain crypto transactions, including mining.
Under the framework, staking could be considered as “business captive income” or only taxed if the crypto is cashed out for fiat currencies. While hard forks and airdrops could be taxed either as ordinary income or when the tokens are cashed.
Related: Ukraine officials get training on crypto and virtual assets investigation
The regulator suggests a tax-free threshold could help “relieve the burden on small investors” and is common in other jurisdictions.
Exemptions for donations, transfers between family members, and holders who keep their crypto for a set amount of time are also flagged as possibilities. However, the NSSMC says the exemption might not apply to non-custodial crypto wallets.
Last December, Daniil Getmantsev, head of the tax committee of Ukraine’s parliament, said a draft bill to legalize cryptocurrencies was under review and expected to be finalized early this year.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy first signed a law establishing a legal framework for the country to operate a regulated crypto market in March 2022.
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Digital asset manager 21Shares has filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission to launch a spot Dogecoin exchange-traded fund, following similar filings from rivals Bitwise and Grayscale.
The 21Shares Dogecoin ETF would seek to track the price of the memecoin Dogecoin (DOGE), according to the firm’s April 9 Form S-1 registration statement. The Dogecoin Foundation’s corporate arm, House of Doge, plans to assist 21Shares with marketing the fund.
21Shares said Coinbase Custody would be the proposed custodian of its Dogecoin ETF but did not specify a fee, ticker or what stock exchange it would list on.
Source: James Seyffart
21Shares must also file a 19b-4 filing with the SEC to kickstart the regulator’s approval process for the fund.
DOGE currently has a $24.2 billion market cap and is the eighth-largest cryptocurrency by value. It was created in 2013 as a joke and is a fork of Lucky Coin, which itself is a fork of Bitcoin.
21Shares’ proposed Dogecoin ETF is the company’s latest effort to expand its spot crypto ETF offerings, which currently includes only a spot Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) fund.
The issuer also filed with the SEC in February to launch a spot Polkadot (DOT) ETF and last year, it filed to create a spot XRP (XRP) ETF.
Related: Dogecoin millionaires are buying dips as DOGE price eyes 30% rally
The recent surge in crypto ETF filings reflects a “spaghetti cannon approach” from issuers testing which products the new SEC leadership might approve, Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart said in February.
“Issuers will try to launch many many different things and see what sticks,” Seyffart said.
Seyffart and fellow Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas said in February that there is a 75% chance that the SEC will approve a spot Dogecoin ETF this year, while the betting platform Polymarket currently gives approval odds of 64%.
21Shares and House of Doge partner for DOGE funds in Switzerland
21Shares also said on April 9 that it partnered with House of Doge to launch a fully backed Dogecoin exchange-traded product on Switzerland’s SIX Swiss Exchange.
The 21Shares Dogecoin product will trade under the ticker “DOGE” with a 2.5% fee.
21Shares president Duncan Moir said that Dogecoin “has become more than a cryptocurrency: it represents a cultural and financial movement that continues to drive mainstream adoption, and DOGE offers investors a regulated avenue to be part of this exciting project.”
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Update April 10 at 1:41am UTC: This article has been updated to include more background on Paul Atkins before becoming SEC chair.
The US Senate has confirmed US President Donald Trump’s nominee, Paul Atkins, as chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission in a 51-45 vote largely along party lines.
Atkins’ confirmation on April 9 comes after Trump named the pro-crypto former Wall Street consultant to lead the agency late last year. Atkins also served as an SEC commissioner between 2002 and 2008, during the global financial crisis.
”A veteran of our Commission, we look forward to him joining with us, along with our dedicated staff, to fulfill our mission on behalf of the investing public,” the agency’s commissioners wrote in an April 9 statement.
Atkins founded financial consulting firm Patomak Global Partners in 2009, specializing in regulatory compliance and risk management, and served as co-chair of crypto advocacy group Token Alliance between 2017 and late 2024.
After he’s sworn in, Atkins will take over from Mark Uyeda, who has been the SEC’s acting chair since Jan. 20, after former chair Gary Gensler stepped down. Gensler’s tenure saw the SEC launch multiple lawsuits and investigations against crypto firms over alleged breaches of securities laws.
Source: Cynthia Lummis
Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott expressed confidence that Atkins would continue the SEC’s crypto-friendly approach that it has taken under the Trump administration.
“Atkins will also provide regulatory clarity for digital assets, allowing American innovation to flourish, and ensuring we remain competitive on the global stage.”
Under Trump, the SEC created a Crypto Task Force to consult with the industry on regulation and dropped several crypto-related investigations and enforcement actions undertaken by the Gensler-led SEC.
Atkins is expected to take a different approach, telling a Senate confirmation hearing in March that a top priority of his at the SEC would be “to provide a firm regulatory foundation for digital assets through a rational, coherent, and principled approach.”
Atkins’ confirmation delayed by disclosures
Atkins’ confirmation was reportedly delayed due to several financial disclosures he needed to file as a result of marrying into a billionaire family.
Related: No crypto project has registered with the SEC and ‘lived to tell the tale’ — House committee hearing
He married Sarah Humphreys Atkins in 1990 — whose family is tied to TAMKO Building Products LLC, a manufacturer of residential roofing shingles that turned over $1.2 billion in revenue in 2023, Forbes reported in December. The couple have a reported combined net worth of at least $327 million.
Some of those financial disclosures revealed that Atkins owned up to $6 million worth of crypto-related investments, including crypto custody platform Anchorage Digital and blockchain tokenization platform Securitize, Fortune reported last month.
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