(Bloomberg) -- A U.K. government advisory panel declined to recommend rolling out Covid-19 shots to adolescents, instead passing the decision to Britain’s chief medical officers. 

While the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation said Friday that the benefit of vaccination for 12-to-15-year-olds was “marginally greater” than the potential known harms, it advised the government to ask the U.K.’s four chief medical officers to weigh in on the decision, taking into account the impact on schools and young people’s education.

“Given the very low risk of serious Covid-19 disease in otherwise healthy 12-to-15-year-olds, considerations on the potential harms and benefits of vaccination are very finely balanced and a precautionary approach was agreed,” the JCVI said in a statement.

Concerns center on a very rare heart condition that has been linked to the Pfizer Inc. shot, one of the only vaccines that has been authorized for use in children.

The U.K. is an outlier among its neighbors over its decision not to vaccinate healthy adolescents, instead only offering the shots to those under-16 with underlying health conditions or who live with vulnerable adults. In the U.S., children 12 and over have been getting the vaccines since May, while most of the European Union has opted to vaccinate young people ahead of the fall school year.

The JCVI did recommend that the range of underlying health issues eligible for vaccination be expanded to include children with conditions such as sickle cell disease or type 1 diabetes. The government has already asked the National Health Service to prepare for the rollout of vaccines to adolescents and said that if it does proceed parental consent would be required.

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