The government’s vaccine advisors have refused to recommend Covid vaccines for healthy children aged between 12 and 15.

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) is not recommending mass vaccination of children aged between 12 and 15.

The committee has said that it is widening the so-far limited rollout to more children in this age bracket who have underlying health conditions.

The programme is being extended from what had been considered the most at-risk children, to include children with chronic major heart, lung, kidney, liver and neurological conditions.

It means about 200,000 more children will be invited for vaccines.

The department said they wanted to be “ready to hit the ground running”.