Covid vsccine

Couple of thoughts on that

1. All vaccines, like all medicine, have potential side effects. Even something as innocuous as Advil can cause internal bleeding. Medicine should always be weighed in a cost-benefit. This vaccine has side effects like any other, but they're rare. That vaccines have side effects doesn't make them unsafe or a bad idea. Any vaccine or injection can cause shoulder injury from the injection itself. Here's two resources on that.
www.ismp.org/resources/prevent-shoulder-injuries-during-covid-19-vaccinations
ccandh.com/vaccines-and-shoulder-injuries/

2. mRNA has a half life in the body of a couple of hours. Whatever is happening from the mRNA injection is over in a week.

3. COVID also has rare side effects. The rare side effects from COVID (like GBS and blood clots) are more common than the rare side effects of the vaccine. The reality is ultimately you have a high chance of getting COVID if you do not get the vaccine.

4. Children and young adults on average have incredibly mild cases of COVID and don't seem to contribute to spread. I don't believe we should be vaccinating kids for two reasons: cost-benefit isn't there if the disease risks become near-parity with vaccine side effect risk, and also every vaccine has an opportunity cost. The world needs vaccines right now for the vulnerable populations, and American kids are basically a risky waste of vaccines that could be going to people who actually need them.

5. Ultimately herd immunity is part of any vaccination strategy, so mass vaccination is always the goal. The only way this ends is if enough people either get it and recover (or die, sadly) or are vaccinated against it.

6. We don't know how long vaccines protect someone because we haven't been giving them vaccines for long enough to say with certainty. Certainty comes from observation. So far we know that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines provide protection for at least six months. The reason it's "at least" is because that's as long as we've been following volunteers in the clinical trials. It may be similar to the flu, where a combination of new variants that mutate seasonally and naturally waning immunity require boosters. But we don't know, because vaccines range from only a few months like the flu to once in your life like measles. No one really knows yet, and that's ok.

7. This vaccine was never intended to prevent everyone from contracting the virus. However, it does reduce the likelihood of getting the virus by 90%+ and brings the risk of hospitalization and death to near zero.

Also - it's sad that it needs to be said but yeah, there's no excuse for treating people with anything other than kindness and respect regardless of what they think about masks, or vaccines, or whatever. People should relax a bit, because the in-your-face and hypernegative approach just makes people dig in. 

- Seems like the degree to which children spread COVID is still unclear.

Everything is unclear, all the time hahaha. But it *seems like* they don't contribute significantly to spread on a macro level. Schools haven't been the source of big community spread, and outbreaks at school tend to be among the staff rather than students.
www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-briefs/transmission_k_12_schools.html

This study looked at rates before and after schools opening in Israel and it seems like the very young (less than 9) especially don't contribute to spread.
jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2778940?utm_source=For_The_Media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_term=042621

- Is the disease risk actually equal to or lesser than the vaccine side effect risk, or are you just posing a hypothetical?
Well the risk of fatality for a child due to COVID in the United States is incredibly low. In the entire country for children under the age of 18 there have been a total of 287 deaths from COVID19. That's comparable to the risk from seasonal flu (which includes the fact that many children receive flu shots, so COVID is less lethal than seasonal flu for kids - thank God!).

It seems like the single highest risk from the vaccine is anaphylaxis (which is not unique to this vaccine). The rate is 2-10 cases per million doses (in adults) depending on the vaccine, and its riskier if you have a history of allergy. But, they also monitor for it when giving shots so it isn't a death sentence. It also isn't the only side effect. The published ballpark IFR for kids is something like 10 per million cases. There's not much upside to be had, especially compared to an adult.

- Agreed that the world needs vaccines for vulnerable populations, but there are political and industry factors which are limiting supply in other regions...maybe those should be addressed first.
Eh, for example the US has said they'll be sending vaccines to Canada and Mexico, but only a paltry 1.5 and 2.5 million. That number could be much higher, and with our economic ties and travel, it's a win-win.

New Research Suggests Number of Kids Hospitalized for COVID Is Overcounted

"The implications of the findings of these two studies are enormously important, as reports of pediatric hospitalizations have regularly made headlines over the past year, greatly affecting public perceptions about risks to children."

"The hospitalization numbers for children were already extremely low relative to adults — at the pandemic’s peak this winter, it was roughly ten times lower than for 18-to-49-year-olds and 77 times lower than those age 65 and up. But cutting the pediatric numbers by nearly half is a striking difference, making the actual rates vanishingly small."

"Pediatric hospitalization figures for COVID-19 also influence policy on school openings and guidelines, camp recommendations, and other political decisions. Gandhi and Beck’s commentary noted, “Children have suffered tremendously due to policies that have kept schools and recreational facilities closed to them, and the burden has been greatest on children who are low-income and English-language learners.”"

"Moreover, the findings arrive as parents have begun vaccinating children under the expedited “emergency-use authorization” against a virus that, these findings suggest, poses a dramatically lower incidence of pediatric hospitalizations than the data have shown thus far. Stefan Baral, an infectious-diseases epidemiologist and physician at Johns Hopkins, wrote in the British Medical Journal about the risk-benefit calculus of vaccinating children against a disease that poses a “very low likelihood of severe outcomes” to them, which, he argued, means it does not meet the definition of an “emergency.”" (emphasis mine)

teejay completely agree about the kids not meeting the standard of the FDA emergency use provisions.




COVID19 doesn't seem to fall into that category for children.

The thing was kids were getting really really sick, so it was seamed better to admit than street, yes the first rule of medicine is not do no harm, it’s cover your ass.

This from a friend at TX children’s : it’s not that they were or are seeing a ton of sick kids, it’s just that the kids we do see are really really bad. They live, but we have to do a lot for that to happen and with the effects we are seeing with adult long haulers we will only with time know the lasting effects on kids.
Plus you have to add in the idea of non symptomatic transmission, even if the kid isn’t sick, he could transmit it to adults.
The other thing is those studies represent a space in time as far as how this virus morphs at some point the virus will adapt and realize the young makes great hosts.

The thing is how many kids ( and adults have these co morbidites but haven’t been diagnosed?

Yeah the hard and unless your testing everybody all the time really hard to say where that line is, but in this case it seams non symptomatic transmission is a generally excepted reality by most.

Someone sent me this guy, second time I come across him. Really appreciate it, and this is a good video about vaccinating kids.