Dan Wootton was slated online after he decided to attack the decision to keep teachers safe by vaccinating children.
The Daily Mail columnist, known for his controversial opinions, wrote a Daily Mail piece with the headline: “Why are we jabbing millions of kids who are at almost no risk of Covid simply to keep teachers at work after a year of doing almost nothing?”
Researcher Samuel Jenkinson quickly leapt in, and tweeted in response: “Teaching online during a pandemic was often harder than in person.
“Teaching in person with masks and distancing measures and constant disruption later on also incredibly hard.”
Then, taking aim at Wootton, he added: “Your job is to be a gobs**** for a couple of hours a day. Sit down.”
Wootton has caused further controversy throughout the pandemic by dubbing vaccine passports “coercion”, and has even called for a push back against “doomsday scientists” in a bid for restrictions to end during his GB News show.
This latest debate on jabs for children followed the advice from the UK’s chief medical officer and government adviser Professor Chris Whitty that children aged between 12 and 15 should now be offered the Covid vaccine.
Jabbing children has been a major source of contention in recent months, especially as kids are not expected to suffer from the same severe Covid symptoms as adults if they test positive.
Critics claimed the potential side effects of the vaccine itself might not outweigh the protection against Covid in children.
The debate was then taken up a gear when the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation – made up of the top independent advisers to the government – did not recommend rolling out jabs to those under 16, on the basis that they had not collected enough data about the long-term consequences.
However, many other European nations have rolled out the vaccine programme to those under 16 in a bid to reduce transmission across the entire population.
Speaking in a press conference on Monday, Whitty said the “benefit exceeds the risk to a sufficient degree”.
He, and the three other chief medical officers, was recommending all four nations of the Union offer the vaccine to those aged between 12 and 15 – although the final decision rests with ministers.