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Comment by timr | Hacker News Reader

> I'd imagine not too long after safe and effective vaccines are authorized for children under 12.

Children are at exceptionally low risk from Covid. It's time to stop with fear, uncertainty and doubt, and deal with facts.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01897-w

In the US, 340 children under 17 have died from Covid. Total. During the same period, 187 have died from the flu, and over 51,000 children have died from all causes:

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm#Se...

The reason the vaccines aren't being approved for children is that there is compelling evidence that children are at greater risk from the vaccines than the virus. This is why (for example) approval for vaccination of children and teenagers is split across Europe, and the UK has restricted access to only children with known vulnerabilities:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-19/u-k-to-gi...

https://www.voanews.com/covid-19-pandemic/european-countries...

> At that point the majority of those who actively want protection will be able to get it.

This is less about what the children want, and more about anxious adults want, and that is unconscionable. Kids are largely at the mercy of their parents, so it's essential that the regulatory bodies tread carefully on this issue. We don't need kids to be vaccinated to reduce Covid to a manageable seasonal illness on par with the flu.

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From the Nature article you linked to:

> The studies did not evaluate rates of less-severe illness or debilitating ‘long COVID’ symptoms that can linger months after the acute phase of the infection has past. “The low rate of severe acute disease is important news, but this does not have to mean that COVID does not matter to children,” says paediatrician Danilo Buonsenso at the Gemelli University Hospital in Rome. “Please, let’s keep attention — as much as is feasible — on immunization.”

Death is not the only bad outcome to be avoided.

> The reason the vaccines aren't being approved for children is that there is compelling evidence that children are at greater risk from the vaccines than the virus.

A Nature article [0] says:

> Most of those affected have recovered, and the data suggest that the risk of these conditions is “extremely low”, says paediatrician David Pace at the University of Malta in Msida — about 67 cases per million second doses in adolescent males aged 12–17, and 9 per million in adolescent females in the same age group.

There are ~48 million kids under 12 in the US. Assuming they are evenly split between male and female, that would mean 1,824 cases of myocarditis and pericarditis if 100% of them were vaccinated. Given that nowhere near 100% of children have been exposed to COVID and yet 340 have died, I don't see clear evidence here that the vaccine is more risky than not being vaccinated.

[0] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01898-9

> Death is not the only bad outcome to be avoided.

And this is yet another illustration of the point I was making about fear, uncertainty and doubt: the Nature article didn't say that there is proof that children will have "long Covid"...it says that these particular studies didn't address the question.

By this standard, anyone can make up any speculation of something that might happen to children someday, and we'll use that speculation to demand fearful responses, indefinitely. There is no end to this logic.

Fortunately, the well-controlled evidence is increasingly pointing to the conclusion that "long Covid" is not a serious risk to children -- and that, more generally, Covid appears to be similar to other viral infections in terms of long-term symptoms:

https://twitter.com/apsmunro/status/1421415741706981376

Again, lots of hysterical speculation in this area, not much good data. But the better the data gets, the less legitimate the early, speculative claims appear.

> There are ~48 million kids under 12 in the US. Assuming they are evenly split between male and female, that would mean 1,824 cases of myocarditis and pericarditis if 100% of them were vaccinated.

The myocarditis issue disproportionately affects young boys. Your calculation is incorrect.

> Given that nowhere near 100% of children have been exposed to COVID and yet 340 have died, I don't see clear evidence here that the vaccine is more risky than not being vaccinated.

Be that as it may, the UK and about half of the EU countries disagree with your assessment, including a number of experts here in the US, as well:

https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/second-opinions/93340

> By this standard, anyone can make up any speculation of something that might happen to children someday, and we'll use that speculation to demand fearful responses, indefinitely.

You are also speculating, but simply about different things. You're speculating about harm from the vaccine, or about infection that don't happen. One way to avoid going down that speculation rabbithole is to defer to experts whose job it is to weigh the pros and cons and crunch the numbers.

https://services.aap.org/en/news-room/news-releases/aap/2021...

"The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends vaccinating all children ages 12 and older who are eligible for the federally authorized COVID-19 vaccine."

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/recommend...

"CDC recommends everyone 12 years and older should get a COVID-19 vaccination to help protect against COVID-19."

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseas...

"Yes. Experts, including those at Johns Hopkins, believe that the benefits of being vaccinated for COVID-19 outweigh the risks. Although COVID-19 in children is usually milder than in adults, some kids can get very sick and have complications or long-lasting symptoms that affect their health and well-being. The virus can cause death in children although this is rarer than for adults."

> The myocarditis issue disproportionately affects young boys. Your calculation is incorrect.

I took that into account when calculating.

> including a number of experts here in the US

At national scale, you can find experts that will tell you anything. The consensus opinion of the major US health authorities is that the vaccine is a net benefit for children.

> You are also speculating, but simply about different things. You're speculating about harm from the vaccine,

No, I've provided evidence of that. It's not speculation: young boys are seeing disproportionate levels of vaccine-induced myocarditis

> One way to avoid going down that speculation rabbithole is to defer to experts whose job it is to weigh the pros and cons and crunch the numbers

Indeed, that's all I've done here.

> "The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends vaccinating all children ages 12 and older who are eligible for the federally authorized COVID-19 vaccine."

We're talking about kids under 12.

> "CDC recommends everyone 12 years and older should get a COVID-19 vaccination to help protect against COVID-19."

We're talking about kids under 12.

> Experts, including those at Johns Hopkins, believe that the benefits of being vaccinated for COVID-19 outweigh the risks.

And other experts disagree with those experts (the ones I linked to, above). Now what?

That's the problem with blind appeals to authority...you can always find another authority. I'm getting pretty tired of seeing news reporters credulously using the phrase "experts say", and applying no critical thought to what they're actually saying.

In this case, you can find legitimate "experts" on both sides of the debate, and both deserve to be heard.

Here you say listen to both arguments, which seems right. Above your tone was ‘don’t vax kids because the UK and half of Europe say not to’ which does make one wonder, ‘what about the other half?’

The UK is often on the wrong side of health vs. quackery, in recent decades originating then spreading more ‘expert’ FUD to set back global disease eradication than perhaps any other first world country. That doesn’t mean the UK is mistaken now, but it does indeed suggest a more careful and less credulous deconstruction of “the UK’s” balance of belief.

> Above your tone was ‘don’t vax kids because the UK and half of Europe say not to’ which does make one wonder, ‘what about the other half?’

I don't think that was my tone, but interpretation is up to the reader, I guess.

An accurate, concise statement of my opinion is that the vaccines should probably not be approved for kids under 12 at this time, and that this does not meaningfully affect our ability to get past the current hysteria, which we should be doing with great haste.

I agree there is a lot of hysterical speculation, around everything from the initial high death rates to the supposed benefits of HCQ. And slowly we have need to attempt to re-evaluate the data, when it is possible. I really wonder how we could get that data more accurately in the future, without all of the inherent privacy implications and dangers from collecting it.

The article also mentions that most of those myocarditis have already recovered while none of those dead came back to life (I am assuming so anyways). Since I see you post to COVID questions often, what would you consider to be "more risky?" It is clear teens are on the low end of personal risk from COVID, but they also put others at increased risk of complications, such as their parents, in addition to their own mild risks.

> Since I see you post to COVID questions often, what would you consider to be "more risky?" It is clear teens are on the low end of personal risk from COVID, but they also put others at increased risk of complications, such as their parents, in addition to their own mild risks.

This depends so heavily on personal circumstance that all I can say is "consult with your doctor". There are kids for whom the tradeoff is obviously in favor of getting the vaccine, and others for whom it isn't.

From a high-level perspective, I tend to agree with the logic outlined here (same link as in previous comment):

https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/second-opinions/93340

Yes, PCP involvement is wise. Reading deep into that link, I notice it says their advice (for 1 dose) is predicated specifically on the drop in infectivity rates in June, implying that that the more virulent delta strain that began circulating shortly after publication meant we should vaccine all eligible teens with 2 doses now. I think that is too strong perhaps, but I am not too certain what we know about it. Even most of the counter-example countries have changed their position (Germany today, Israel before the article, their link Netherlands for seems to have actually said teens should be vaccinated as soon as doses were available). Do you agree with that assessment of the link?

Having a personal experience with this, I now strongly suspect that we have a severe gap in data collection, and failures of the medical system where I'm at to properly capture side effects. This might be in part because of medical professional cultural hesitancy to attribute effects to vaccination. The bucketing of symptoms may also affect this, not all heart related side effects are myocarditis, but that's what everyone is looking at.

In my case, with no prior history of any heart conditions, I experienced a racing heartbeat, crushing chest pain and pain that radiated from my chest to my head beginning 2-3 days after the vaccination. Doctors I saw were generally skeptical that this could be caused by the vaccine; their first instinct was to discount any possibility that it might be vaccine related.

I'm now significantly more distrustful of public vaccination campaigns for covid-19, and the side effect data for such. There seems to be a strong incentive, or some underlying cultural bias to underreport this.

The problem is that none of the risk analysis takes into account freedom and happiness. Not every injury is worth avoiding at all costs.

> Children are at exceptionally low risk from Covid.

Low risk of death, yes. But still a substantial risk of long lasting severe effects: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

A complete loss of sense of taste, or chronic fatigue are both entirely possible outcomes with children, and at this time, it's not clear at all how long these effects last.

Conversely, the effects of myocarditis, while unpleasant, are fairly well understood (and at least one physician I've spoken to was of the opinion that the vaccine related risk was overstated, as the base rate in that age group was bound to be higher than reported, due to the mild nature of most cases, so some of the elevated rates appear to be due to closer post-vaccination scrutiny).

The highest quality study on this to date [1] found no difference in the prevalence of long term symptoms between kids that had covid and kids that didn't.

[1] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.16.21257255v...

See how this guy misrepresents the study on TWiV episode 783.

https://youtu.be/73KWHPsw-ag?t=525

He states that '4% seropositive having symptoms after 12 weeks', but omits to mention that 2% of seronegative have symptoms after 12 weeks too...

Also he doesn't mention the 9%/10% rate split at 4 weeks, or the symptoms:

Tiredness, Headache, Congested or runny nose, Stomachach, Sleep disturbances, Cough

So he's making the case for child vaccination on the basis of 2 extra seropositive children having one or more of the above symptoms.

And, BTW, the study authors themselves note the limitations as follows:

'Limitations include the relatively small number of seropositive children, possible misclassification of some false seropositive children, potential recall bias, parental report of child’s symptoms, and lack of information on symptom severity.'

The study authors concluded that:

'Seropositive children, all with a history of pauci-symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection, did not report long COVID more frequently than seronegative children. This study suggests a very low prevalence of long COVID in a randomly selected population-based cohort of children followed over 6 months after serological testing.'

The Louisiana government had a press conference today where doctors from children's hospitals claimed their hospitals are full, especially the ICUs. [0]

Even if kids don't die and just get sick enough to take up beds that still puts stress on limited hospital resources that other children need.

The CDC data doesn't seem to show an unusual surge in hospitalizations for kids (0-17) [1].

But the LDH data does show a significant increase in cases for kids [2] (and local news has reports from local hospitals citing highest-ever covid-positive child patients [3]).

Of course if the nymag article is correct and it's just a short spike then that would be a relief for many people.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzxWZ8qe0oU&t=2005s

[1] https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#new-hospital-admis... [Jurisdiction: Louisiana, By Jurisdiction and Age Group]

[2] https://ldh.la.gov/coronavirus/ [cases over time by age group]

[3] https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/article_27d70fa...

The governor had his head in his hands as the doctor was speaking and later asked if Louisiana was really the self described “most pro-life state”

The reason to not want children to get COVID is that they will spread it to their parents and grandparents, who are more vulnerable. It’s not about whether the children will die, which everyone agrees is very low probability.

The parents and grandparents who want to be vaccinated already have been.

The current vaccines will not prevent kids from spreading the virus to their grandparents.

It's not about preventing. It's about reducing probabilities. The vaccines do not prevent kids from getting it. They do not prevent adults from getting it. They do not prevent people from spreading it. They do not prevent people from getting hospitalized or dying from it. They decrease the chances of all of the above happening.

The real-life efficacy at preventing transmission is waning by the day, it seems.

It’s an interesting point, and I’m relatively neutral on all the underlying empirical claims. But taking the assumptions as a given, doesn’t this violate the Hippocratic Oath?

Physicians are ethically forbidden from recommending a medical treatment that’s a harm to the patient, even if it’s in the interest of society.

>Physicians are ethically forbidden from recommending a medical treatment that’s a harm to the patient, even if it’s in the interest of society.

Vaccines work at the population level, physicians don't check if you're going to benefit, society benefits. That is still ethical, depending on the ethical framework. I don't think doctors truly hold the Hippocratic Oath as ground truth, most probably don't believe in Apollo, for example.

> This is less about what the children want, and more about anxious adults want, and that is unconscionable.

You could say that about basically the entire relationship that society has with children nowadays... tragically.

> Children are at exceptionally low risk from Covid.

Let's hope the die keep rolling up to that result with each succeeding variant!

This is a perfect illustration of the point. In the face of ample documented evidence of the actual risk, your response is to speculate wildly about future events that are completely inconsistent with what we know.

The "give up and let it be endemic forever" defeatism attitude appears very statistically foolish.

It's likely, yes, but why on earth would we want to just accept that?

The flu, for instance, bounces around in severity and kills tens of thousands per year in the US. Few of those are kids, so what? If we're happy to let the virus continue to transmit in any populations, it'll change in various ways. One year a variant may pop up that'll be more harmful to those kids. At some other point a variant may pop up that'll be more elusive against adult immunity, etc. Over years, how many lives does that add up to? Why wouldn't we aggressively try to vaccinate as many people as possible before those things happen?

Success wouldn't be guaranteed even if people weren't opposed to it for various spurious reasons but it would be nice if we believed we could accomplish hard things...

Is it defeatism or just accepting reality? What are the chances that Covid19 is ever globally eradicated?

> The "give up and let it be endemic forever" defeatism attitude appears very statistically foolish.

Well first, that has nothing to do with what I wrote. I made a very specific argument about how fear -- hysteria, really -- is driving our reaction to what is right to do for children.

But second, it isn't "statistically foolish"...it's just a basic understanding of biology and our rather poor history of eradicating viral diseases. Statistics don't come into play here either way.

Reasonable people can disagree on whether or not Covid can be eradicated, but you have to be delusional to think that this will be accomplished on any sort of timeline that is relevant to our lifetimes.

Since there are animal reservoirs for SARS-CoV-2, the virus will always be endemic regardless of what we do. That's not defeatism, just scientific reality.

First, I'll note that my initial comment was in the context of "when do we get on with our lives", which I took as a different question from "when _should_ we get on with our lives." What I think we _should_ do is not the same as what I think we _will_ do. Plenty of debate to be had around the "should" question of course, but it is a different question.

That noted, and since I did engage in your comment on the risk to children, I am curious about your statement that my response is inconsistent with what we know. As I understand it, we don't actually know why children have been less susceptible to illness so far, do we? I've seen plenty of theorizing, but I haven't seen any reporting indicating these are more than theories so far. If there's some reliable reporting on this topic I missed, I'd definitely be happy to see it!

> As I understand it, we don't actually know why children have been less susceptible to illness so far, do we?

Well, everything is a theory, but the most plausible one I've seen is that ACE2 expression is age-dependent. Young kids don't have much of the receptor the virus needs.

The response to controlling people and taking away their freedom in the name of COVID has been ran deliberately and openly run through fear mongering. It's no wonder people keep defaulting to that, but we must actively reject and counter fear mongering.

> run through fear mongering

More than 4 million people have died so far. If you're going to say it was "fear mongering" then buzz off.

If you aren't aware of all the fear mongering, you're not paying attention.

"If it bleeds, it leads" has been true since news began.

4 million died, so COVID coverage has the most accurate fear-to-reality alignment the news has ever had.

From delta, we clearly have evidence that on a short timeframe a version with _wildly_ enhanced transmissibility has evolved. So speculating that changes will continue is reasonable. Additionally, we know that leaky vaccines and continued spread may cause greater pathogenicity.

> https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/jou...

So that's not wild speculation, it's a well-educated concern.

> we clearly have evidence that on a short timeframe a version with _wildly_ enhanced transmissibility has evolved. So speculating that changes will continue is reasonable.

So let's be clear: the claim is that the virus can mutate, therefore, any particular outcome is equally likely?

If I speculate that the virus will mutate into a hemorrhagic fever, like marburg or ebola, is that reasonable?

If I speculate that the virus will lose its pathogenicity, is that reasonable?

(hint: all of our best data suggests that the IFR of the Delta strain is considerably lower than previous strains: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...)

There's obviously a limit to how much you can speculate about "continued change". At some point, it just becomes a scary story.

> the claim is that the virus can mutate, therefore, any particular outcome is equally likely?

No.

Did you actually read the study I linked?

Outcomes that enhance transmissibility are always being selected for. Things like higher viral load in the vaccinated.

That which spreads, spreads.

All things being equal, pathogenicity is neutral and gets down-selected when the pathogenicity conflicts with the ability to spread. But with two different populations, the feedback loop that of down-selective pressure against spread limitations due to pathogenicity may be broken. If it spreads in one population which requires characteristics that make it lethal in the other population.

> Did you actually read the study I linked?

Yes. It makes the general argument (not specific to Covid) that is known to any evolutionary biologist: partial selective pressure causes an organism to evolve away from that pressure. It's why we tell people to take their entire course of antibiotics.

It in no way implies that the organism will evolve to do anything else. You wrote this:

> Additionally, we know that leaky vaccines and continued spread may cause greater pathogenicity.

This is NOT supported by evidence, except in the completely silly sense that the virus "may" do anything, if it is allowed to continue existing.

If we partially vaccinate, SARS-CoV2 "may" evolve legs and do a little dance...but it probably won't (...and for that matter, it probably will hit an upper limit on transmissibility as well. But now I am speculating, if only in an evidence-based manner.)

I provided source evidence documenting an example of the mechanism and result of what I'm saying. Get back to me when you can provide a source example case of a virus evolving legs and doing a little dance and then we can consider the probabilities equivalent.

Until then, we both know they're not.

You provided a source showing that a chicken virus escaped selective pressure, in chickens, grown in a lab. Let's not overstate the relevance of your "evidence" to SARS-CoV2 amongst the human population.

But as I said, there's nothing terribly surprising about the idea that pathogens mutate to escape selective pressure. It's right out of biology 101. It would be tremendously surprising if those pathogens became more virulent, which is what you're trying to claim.

"So let's be clear: the claim is that the virus can mutate, therefore, any particular outcome is equally likely?"

That's where you set up the silly straw man you've been battling.

> be tremendously surprising if those pathogens became more virulent

[citation needed]

I'd find it helpful if you provided some thoughts on determining what's reasonable and what's not reasonable to expect from future variants. As I understand it, a virus dramatically changing its mode of transmission -- say going from respiratory to a hemorrhagic fever -- doesn't really happen. But we also have a decent understanding of how covid gets transmitted now, so have some way to anchor expectations. You're saying it's not reasonable for covid to evolve to become more likely to cause illness in children. If that's true that's great news, but I really have no way to evaluate such a claim. Why is that unreasonable? Wouldn't we need more insight into why children are currently less affected to speculate on how reasonable it would be for that to change?

I notice your profile you have a biology background. I don't, and am guessing most people here don't either, so I'd find it helpful to get an explanation of why you find a change that puts children at more risk unlikely (and I bet others would too).

> You're saying it's not reasonable for covid to evolve to become more likely to cause illness in children. If that's true that's great news, but I really have no way to evaluate such a claim. Why is that unreasonable? Wouldn't we need more insight into why children are currently less affected to speculate on how reasonable it would be for that to change?

The short answer is that evolution is random. It isn't an intentional process. The virus isn't trying to become more infectious, or deadlier, or...anything, really. It's just a random process, filtered by some outside force(s). And in this case, the relevant outside forces acting on the virus are: 1) the human immune system's ability to see the virus, and 2) the virus' ability to bind to our cells.

If you're vaccinated (but not previously infected), your immune system can basically only efficiently recognize a bunch of little chunks of the spike protein of the virus -- the piece that allows the virus to bind to your cells. So any random mutations to that spike protein are potentially beneficial, in that they can maybe hide the virus from your immune system, or maybe increase how tightly the virus binds to your cells, or they can be potentially detrimental, in that they can maybe cause the virus to bind less tightly to your cells, or make the spike protein misshaped or something. Or they can do nothing at all.

These are essentially the only "forces" related to vaccines that are guiding the evolutionary process: forces that attempt to change the structure of the spike protein to either escape the immune system, increase cellular affinity, or decrease cellular affinity. The vaccines do nothing to influence anything else. All other dimensions are random, with respect to the vaccine.

Viruses are pretty stupid. If you want to imagine that the virus could become "more fatal" (somehow; it's not clear how this would happen), it has to be done within this framework. There was to be some process that is selecting for the viruses that are "more fatal", and that process needs to be somehow more efficient when only a fraction of the human population recognizes the little bits of the spike protein encoded by the vaccines.

Can this happen? Sure, anything is possible. Is it plausible? No, not really.

Could say the same about the flu, no? How do you think the flu got so deadly in 1918? Far more deadly than Covid by the way.

It was actually the perverse effects on viral selection created by World War I. The relatively mild first wave turned into a deadly second wave because soldiers who became mildly ill stayed put in the trenches, while those who had severe cases were put on trains and sent to crowded field hospitals, where they spread the more lethal variants.

If they simply suppress symptoms without reducing transmission, the current vaccines being administered may have a similar perverse evolutionary effect (although at least they're not actively selecting for worse strains).

Can we stop talking just about deaths?

It's as if, as long as people survive in some form, we shouldn't care.

There has been an uptick of other diseases, including diabetes. Pancreas cells also have ACE-2 receptors and get infected.

It's extremely irresponsible to dismiss the virus' effect on children at this stage.

EDIT: we are also conflating our vaccines, which are manufactured, stable, controlled and much more understood, with a virus, which is multiplying, uncontrolled and mutating. We don't mess with viruses.

This is not FUD, we simply need to be careful with pathogens.

There's a long subthread right at the top where this is discussed:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28042539

TL;DR: there's not much evidence that these things you are concerned about are happening in children, and the best evidence suggests that they are not.

This discussion about all of these things that might/could/maybe/possibly happen to kids who get Covid, but we don't have evidence for it? That's called "speculation".

I'm curious why this comment is being downvoted. Anyone wish to comment?

If I had to guess (and maybe I shouldnt be speaking as I didnt downvote), its a combination of "It's time to stop with fear, uncertainty and doubt, and deal with facts" followed by unsubstantiated "compelling evidence that children are at greater risk from the vaccines than the virus."

The "time to stop with fear" and to stop catering to "anxious adults" can equally apply to this persons crusade to not vaccinate children. A mild mannered moderate can both not be scared of their children having a severe covid reaction AND get their child a jab when its available, if risk assessment reveals there to be benefit.

> its a combination of "It's time to stop with fear, uncertainty and doubt, and deal with facts" followed by unsubstantiated "compelling evidence that children are at greater risk from the vaccines than the virus."

The links I provided -- particularly the last three -- document the points I made regarding relative risk. You just have to read them.

I did make some effort to comb through your links, and I didn't see anything regarding the risk you mention.

You said, your last 3 links in particular. The third to last is the CDC about covid not vaccines.

The Bloomberg article said "The British position is driven by fears of rare cases of myocarditis -- an inflammation of the heart muscle -- and pericarditis -- an inflammation of membranes around the heart -- in younger people who have had the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines."

The VOA article said "Those opposed to vaccinating teenagers argue the risks of adverse reactions outweigh the benefits."

So I ask, what substantiation do you have. Because all youve given is fear. Is there a case of myocarditis death after a vaccine? 79% of young people (around 1000 total) have recovered. Are you expecting the rest not to recover?

Im curious how you calculate risk? Covid deaths 17, mrna vaccine deaths 0? How is the vaccine a greater risk? Are you comparing long term side effects? How do you have those statistics? I still contend that your claim that children are at "greater risk" (of what?) from the vaccine is unsubstantiated at this point. What you are doing is exactly what you accuse others of doing, instilling fear over reason.

I dont believe reality reflects your purview. https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/article_27d70fa...

When you say "unsubstantiated", what do you mean? The post contained links with references from fairly reputable sources.

Could you quote a substantiated reference of serious risk? Is it something I missed besides the myocarditis?

The commenter claims to want to removed "FUD" from the dialogue.

Then proceeds to dispense with their own "FUD" about scared parents desperately trying to vaccinate their children.

Apparently no one else can think for themselves.

You are aware in the past the kids at schools are a large vector for colds etc which they then give to their parents who infect their co workers

Why would covid 19 be any different.

And that's ignoring any potential long term organ damage.

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