It was wall-to-wall covid coverage on the airwaves last night. In particular, there’s confusion about whether the government plans to hand out jabs to under-16s after a member of the government’s covid-19 committee last night contradicted statements made by the Health Ministry’s spokesperson last week.

No decision has been taken on whether pregnant women and children under the age of 16 will be included in the vaccination campaign, Mohamed El Nady, a member of the government’s covid-19 committee, told Kelma Akhira’s Lamees El Hadidi, describing the subject as a “thorny area” (watch, runtime: 10:26). “What matters to us is that vaccination is safe and effective, and so far it has not been confirmed that the vaccination of these groups is safe and effective,” he said.

This clashed with what Health Ministry spokesperson Khaled Megahed said on Wednesday, telling Sada Elbalad that the Health Ministry is planning to start vaccinating minors between the ages of 12 and 18 within days (watch, runtime: 51:59). Earlier this month, President Abdel Fattah El Sisi said that Egypt could start providing vaccines to children under the age of 18 at schools once vaccines are approved for use by minors in Egypt.

First year Cairo Uni students: No jab? No worries. First-year students at Cairo University who have not received the vaccine will be given a grace period to come to the university and get vaccinated, university president Mohamed Othman Elkhosht told Lamees, without disclosing how long students will be allowed to remain unjabbed (watch, runtime: 5:30). Older students will be expected to have been vaccinated when they return to campus unless they have a reasonable excuse such as having a chronic illness, he said. Around 3k students are receiving the jab every day and 12k of the 18k teachers and university staff are now vaccinated, he added.