Schools could hold vaccination clinics for teenagers if Covid jabs for young people are given the go-ahead, a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) has suggested.

Professor Russell Viner, from University College London, who advises the Government, said there was not yet enough safety data to say jabs should happen, while the direct health benefit to children of being vaccinated was low.

But he said a schools-based programme would be the best choice if the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) decides vaccines should be given to youngsters.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has approved the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine for use among children aged 12 and over but the JCVI is yet to decide whether they should receive it.

Prof Viner told a briefing hosted by the Royal Society of Medicine that the risk of death from Covid-19 in this country for children and young people is about one in 0.5 million, and the great majority of those cases were clinically vulnerable.

“The risk of coming into intensive care, so having severe disease, is about one in 50,000 – these events are exceptionally rare,” he added.

“This is about the balance of risks. The benefits to them (children) of being vaccinated, are very low, the risks are unclear.”

He said there was published data from Pfizer regarding safety for around 3,000 teenagers, and a press release from Moderna suggesting safety, but with no published data.

“So we actually have very little safety data,” he said, adding that the “benefits to them (teenagers) in a direct sense in terms of health” are little, though there are benefits in terms of keeping education open.

He said the “safety bar” needs to be very high for teenagers but “exceptionally high for children”, adding that they had quite different immune responses to adults.

On whether teens could consent to vaccines, he said those who are deemed competent and who are fully informed could “consent to taking treatment against the wishes of their parent”.

These principles would and should apply to vaccination if JCVI approves their use, he added.

Prof Viner also said he thought “schools are almost certainly the best platform to provide Covid vaccines to healthy teenagers, if and when a decision is made to do that.

“Quite a lot of communication with parents will be important, both at a national level but also by schools and others who are providing the vaccines.”

On how much vaccinating teenagers could help the pandemic, he said there are a “whole series of unanswered questions about how high we need to get our teenage vaccination rates, if we do decide to vaccinate teenagers, to contribute to overall benefit to the population”.

He added: “I’m hesitant to use the word herd immunity. But in terms of overall benefit to the population, I think it is unclear.”

On whether children should be jabbed when adults around the world have not even had one vaccine, Prof Viner said he has “a lot of sympathy” with the argument that other countries should get vaccines first.

“I don’t think it entirely trumps the need to vaccinate some of our teenagers, those particularly that are clinically vulnerable – these are a relatively small group,” he said.

“I think over time, once vaccine supply is less of an issue, my personal belief is we should be vaccinating our teenagers at the same time as contributing towards international supply, once we have adequate safety data.”

Prof Viner was also asked about whether the 10-day isolation policy for schools should end.

He said the schools policy was “quite a rational policy, and I think it’s been very effective, but I think there are real equity issues about it, once all the adults are vaccinated”.

He said it needed to be “re-thought in an evidence-based way”.

The expert said one of his “real concerns” once all adults are jabbed is that children and young people “will then be the only substantial part of the population that are not vaccinated”.

He said children will then become the source of most infection, adding: “What we will do by vaccinating all the adults is change the dynamics of this pandemic so that children and young people become the source of most infections to vulnerable adults.

“I think that’s one of the reasons, in my mind, that we should think about vaccinating them.”