> Vaccine efficacy is against severe COVID illness, not against transmission.
Since children have very little chance of a severe COVID infection, why the push to vaccinate them then?
Since children have very little chance of a severe COVID infection, why the push to vaccinate them then?
Myocarditis is very serious. Any child with it will need cardiology visits for most of their life.
[1] https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg25133462-800-myocardi...
And how stupid is it that these articles talk about studies but still don't actually link to them?
Well, the middle-man doesn't want you going to the source. What's his job gonna be if you do?
Nuance: Not mentioning that their own full application estimates saving one in a million children, under the best circumstances. See Table 14 on page 34.
The difficult ethical question: on one hand there is 1 child you may save given the information available today. On the other hand you don't know which one ahead of time, you need to inoculate 1 million children with a vaccine for which you don't have any longterm data on.
BioNTech/Pfizer [1]: "This report includes 2 months of follow-up after the second dose of vaccine for half the trial participants and up to 14 weeks’ maximum follow-up for a smaller subset. Therefore, both the occurrence of adverse events more than 2 to 3.5 months after the second dose and more comprehensive information on the duration of protection remain to be determined."
Moderna [2]: "Another limitation is the lack of an identified correlate of protection, a critical tool for future bridging studies. As of the data cutoff, 11 cases of Covid-19 had occurred in the mRNA-1273 group, a finding that limits our ability to detect a correlate of protection. As cases accrue and immunity wanes, it may become possible to determine such a correlate."
AstraZeneca [3]: "In this interim analysis, we have not been able to assess duration of protection, since the first trials were initiated in April, 2020, such that all disease episodes have accrued within 6 months of the first dose being administered. Further evidence will be required to determine duration of protection and the need for additional booster doses of vaccine."
Johnson & Johnson [4]: "A limitation of the trial is the relatively short follow-up, which was necessitated, as in other Covid-19 vaccine trials, by the urgent need for vaccine. The data do not suggest a waning of protection."
[1] https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa2034577 [2] https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa2035389 [3] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... [4] https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2101544
There is also the official reaction. Aug 18, 2021: "CDC Director Says Coronavirus Vaccines Less Effective For Delta But Still Prevent Severe Infection".
Possible all of these studies are flawed. And perhaps I'm accidentally misquoting Rachel Walensky. Given that the original trials were closed by vaccinating the control arm of the studies, not even sure where to look for credible longterm tracking of VE against infection data.
On the other hand, possibly the manufacturer original studies were flawed. Or the virus evolved, Delta, duh. These conversations are difficult to carry partly because we are supposed to take the original studies, created with (acceptable) conflict of interest as gold standard, and summarily dismiss any independent verification thereof.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.10.13.21264966v...
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2114114
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3949410
https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewsolender/2021/08/18/cdc-d...
UK, VE vs delta over 90 days
days VEaPCRI VEaSI
after
2nd
dose
14 85% 93%
30 83% 92%
60 80% 86%
90 75% 78%
Now the picture seems to be that vaccine effectiveness does indeed drop over time, but protection against severe disease remains pretty strong, with the possible exception of old people who tend to have a weak immune response. Most governments have reacted by recommending third shots to this group in order to further improve the protection.
I really can't see any controversy here. This is precisely the procedure one expects when a new vaccine is introduced.
It is also worth pointing out, that even without boosters the vaccines vastly outperform any medication tested against COVID so far. And they do that much cheaper and with lower side effects.
But we've already established that the vaccine doesn't prevent transmission. It may slightly attenuate transmission, but nowhere near enough to stop the spread. Given these facts, the vaccine is mainly so the vulnerable populations can protect themselves, but most children aren't among those populations (obviously immunocompromised children are).
It wasn't my point, but others in this thread have also noted with sources that the level of impact on that younger population (and even small children), including long covid, also appears to be generally underestimated by the general population.
Children exposed to COVID develop strong immunity even if they have no symptoms [1], so the vaccine likely wouldn't convey any more protection than they've already developed.
[1] https://pediatrics.duke.edu/news/children-mild-or-asymptomat...
>Given similarities in the response to natural infection in children and adults, it is likely that vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 will also elicit a similar degree of protection across the full spectrum of age, as has recently been reported for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in children 12–15 years of age (42). Though we cannot directly compare our results to the neutralizing antibody titers reported in vaccine trial studies, both the vaccine trial data and our results suggest that younger age may be associated with greater neutralizing antibody responses.
I'm not a doctor, but doesn't this actually suggest that the younger the age we can administer COVID-19 vaccines, the stronger the antibody response is likely to be?
We'll only figure out the truth long after it matters, so the question being debated is the risk of complications from the vaccine compared to the risk of complications from COVID. Given younger populations have very, very low risk from COVID, this is a subtle and complicated question to answer.
Shouldn't we apply the precautionary principle to that question then ? From my primitive understanding of medical ethics there is duty of care versus do no harm.
As such, considering the slim percentages at play, there is IMHO no duty to administer preventive treatments children which are not infected, while harm may be caused.
"San Francisco says children 5 to 11 will have to comply with proof-of-vaccination mandate"
https://www.sfgate.com/bay-area-politics/article/San-Francis...
If the virus alters the spike protein (eg, the A.30 variant which is pretty much immune to the vaccine), all those other antibodies against the unchanged parts are likely still effective at slowing the virus while new antibodies are developed.
https://www.contagionlive.com/view/delta-variant-icauses-unp...
To further confound the issue, mortality rates in infants is significantly larger than in older kids, for US something like 500/100k vs 20/100k, reflecting a number of infants with congenital issues. Some of those end up counted as "death with covid", even if they were not going to make it either way. It is better to search for epi data for kids excluding 0-1 age group, if at all available.
http://www.bccdc.ca/Health-Info-Site/Documents/Week_41_2021_...