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Comment by mdm_ | Hacker News Reader

>Study authors said the findings suggest vaccinating young children against COVID-19 could also elicit a similar or greater degree of protection than that of adults.

>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?

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First, those claims are speculative as they admit. Second, you cannot generalize from one or two small studies; for instance, other studies (the much-touted Israeli study) have found that natural immunity actually provides much greater protection.

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.

> 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.

It's getting ugly... The choice of newspaper section is telling...

"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...

Ugly is the correct word indeed. Just imagine what attitudes this conditions for at such an age...

The vaccine develops a single antibody against a single spike protein. Natural immunity develops not only a spike protein antibody, but also antibodies against a bunch of other parts of the virus.

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.

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