A GROUP of anti-Covid vaccination activists have been handing out leaflets to parents in a Basingstoke park with misleading information about the Covid vaccine.

The group were at Eastrop on Friday, August 19 targeting parents with children who had gone to the park to watch a family show organised by Love Basingstoke.

READ MORE: Health leaders urge parents to book Covid jab for children

The leaflets claimed there is no risk to children from Covid-19; that the vaccine is just 10 per cent effective against Omicron; and that there is no evidence of any significant reduction in infection and transmission following a jab.

It described the vaccine as “technology” which “cannot be removed from the body”.

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) recommended in February that children aged five to 11 are offered a non-urgent two dose vaccine to “increase the immunity of vaccinated individuals against severe Covid-19 in advance of a potential future wave of Covid-19”.

It advises that while evidence indicates that children aged five to 11 are at the very lowest risk from Covid-19 and that there is some data to suggest that natural immunity may last longer than vaccine-induced immunity, there is “good evidence” that a vaccine “induces a strong immune response”.

The vaccine was developed based on the original SARS-CoV2 virus and JCVI said it is “less well-matched to the Omicron variant”.

Therefore, whilst the current vaccine provides good protection against non-severe infection from SARS-CoV2, protection against the Omicron variant is “less good” and is anticipated to be “of relatively short-duration”.

SEE ALSO: Health hub officially opens in Festival Place

Data from adults suggests that vaccine effectiveness against Omicron wanes over time from around 70 per cent shortly after two vaccine doses to around 25 per cent after 10 weeks and 10 per cent after 20 weeks.

However, JCVI advises that the protection provided against non-severe infection (hospitalisation and deaths) is expected to be “good and maintained for much longer”, as evidenced in the UK data for adults.

The activists at Eastrop claimed that there are “high levels of adverse reactions and deaths” from the vaccine.

In its advice regarding offering the vaccine to children, JCVI states that while systemic reactions such as fatigue, headache and injection site pain are common in this age group, serious adverse events following vaccination are “extremely rare”.

In the US, less than two cases of vaccine-related myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle) have been reported per million doses, at the time the JCVI issued its advice in February.

JVCI also advised that available data indicates that myocarditis following vaccination “resolve within a short time”.

The JCVI advises that vaccination of children aged five to 11 would prevent a “relatively small number of hospitalisations” however the “size of these benefits will depend on the timing and severity of any future wave of infection”.

Regarding the impact of Covid on education, JCVI said “persistent high levels of vaccine-induced protection against non-severe infection” is required to have a “substantial impact on school absences”.

The anti-vaccination group at Eastrop, who had banners up with figures suggesting dozens of children have died from having a Covid vaccine, were unwilling to speak to the Gazette about their views.

Their leaflets titled ‘YOUR Child. YOUR Choice’ included links to open letters signed by health professionals in the UK, USA and Israel.

One linked to an open letter signed by 650 health professionals in the UK.

However, this represents just 0.1 per cent of the 586,000 people who are thought to work as a health professional in the UK.