Reportedly the new rationale for mandating Covid vaccines for children is as a psychological measure ‘to help them avoid worrying about the pandemic and learning to get on with their peer group’.

In that case a placebo could do the job without any risk. Placebos are still effective if you know they’re placebos, and possibly even if you don’t actually take them. They also work better if they’re expensive, which is why I clearly need the taxpayer to buy me the most lavish placebo on the market, to tackle my anxieties about getting on with my richer peers.

Update, two months later: the one time I say the government should do something and then the government does something like it, it had to be this one?