I also think it is irresponsible for this article to not mention what ages they’re actually talking about. At some point there is a crossover of the risk and it may be in the younger to mid teens.
In no way was this ever left out of the discussion. This is a major part of the reason for all the virtual schooling that happened last year.
There were some early reports that children weren’t spreading COVID, and to my knowledge that data was correct. Delta changed that due to the ease with which it spread. But even in the context of early COVID variants, transmission from students to at risk adults was a common topic.
Left out of the discussion? This is basically the entire discussion when vaccinating school children is ever brought up. It's the only defensible position to take.
https://covid-19.ontario.ca/data?fbclid=IwAR2pRUq9GN9EEoDTm0...
In the event that the covid vaccine turn out to have long term health effects, a child has a long life to live with those side effects, unlike a 70 year old. So their risk is greater, and their potential suffering much longer lasting.
Societies have generally made sacrifices for their children, and not sacrificed their children for the benefit of the elderly. The courts have also generally held the interests of the child supersedes the interests of the parents.
I don't think this is true, and I'd be interested to see data that backs up that claim. On that topic, here's a thoughtful article that dives into claims like that:
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/07/the-kids-were-safe-f...
My wife has been a public school teacher for 21 years, and has the same concerns and fears as anyone. Teachers, like other humans, have a spectrum of beliefs, concerns, and experiences.
The article you quote says this “ Once you get to a certain point of community infection rates, it does look like being in-person … is associated with COVID spread in the community,” said Katharine Strunk, an author of the study and professor at Michigan State University.”
We are back to high community infection rates with omicron.
Please cite some. No offense but after nearly 2 years of constant rumor about this virus, the treatments, the vaccines, etc… when I see: “there are studies that show (fill in the blank)” with no studies cited—-I assume hearsay.
I'm vaccinated and I'm not particularly concerned about my kids bringing the virus home now. I'm more worried for them.
I guess it would be complicated if they had to start introducing multiple levels, or some sort of "you can have my seat" functionality, still...
They are not dumb.
And if they aren’t, it seems like they don’t have grounds to complain.
The only way this worry makes sense is if the teachers live with somebody who is highly immunocompromised. Which would indeed suck, but it’s crazy to design societal policy around those dangers.
What I would propose is movement away from nuclear family to more communal living and extended family, but I just see oblivious people push remote learning like it actually solves the problem for most.
That conclusion does however support a push for a return to work economic policy.
It is incredibly unnecessary and risky to vax children, and probably most adults. The only people that this vax should be recommended to are people in high-risk categorizes.
Also I’m not sure why you say the vaccine is such a risk for children. It’s currently undergoing study and an even younger age range is close to being approved. In general we are talking about a vaccine with some minuscule portion of the dna pattern of the virus vs getting exposed to the virus itself which includes the same pattern, and will get multiplied to millions of times higher exposure - along with many many other sequences of the full virus - all with unknown long term effects.
The chance that an unvaccinated person who is COVID-positive will require hospitalization is around 3%.
Your estimate is likely off by a factor of two.
We vaccinate children against a wide variety of things on a routine basis and a pre-requisite for attending school, and the covid vaccine is literally no more risky than those, and they aren't risky. It honestly feels straight anti-vax to make up lies calling it unnecessary and risky, especially with our health care systems once again succumbing to mainly unvaccinated covid idiots.
I suggest that we charitably assume that everyone here is discussing in good faith. Otherwise it's hard to have productive arguments on contentious topics.
1. were invented 18 months ago, have been available for only a year, and were hurried through the FDA's processes
2. underwent limited clinical trials
3. the manufacturers and providers are immune from lawsuits
4. the effectiveness was cited as 95% 8 months ago, but has proven to be much less.
...
I'm betting that the number is 0.
One has to admit, these vaccines and their rollout is all very unusual and against normal order. People having hesitation and skepticism is actually very healthy.
https://www.canadiancovidcarealliance.org/media-resources/th...
It's a completely new approach, which is why we know very little about long term consequences yet.
I'd say it feels straight insane to run this experiment on children when there's little to no risk of them getting sick from the actual virus.
And yes it's a completely new approach -- that is out of your body in weeks and sparks the same immune response that other approaches do.
The idea that there is long term consequences to this is a claim that needs evidence to back it. There's no reason to suggest there would be any new long term effects.
I'd say it feels straight insane to doom teachers, parents and grandparents to infection by school age children, while our hospitals are at capacity and rationing care, and I would call such a policy an intentional murder by policymakers. We know children bring covid-19 home, we know it tears through older populations, we know teachers are at risk, we know our hospitals are triaging care and declining patients, and you'd let that vector go unvaccinated.
All because you're afraid of long term consequences of a 2 decade old technology that causes the same physiological effects as the older technology.
Consider the following with these (mRNA) vaccines (speaking from a U.S. perspective): 1. This is a new type of vaccine that was developed extremely rapidly and the companies behind the vaccines have lawsuit protection against damage the vaccines may cause (now and in the future). 2. An accelerated testing protocol was used. 3. There are political drivers behind these mandates. 4. It is unknown if there are long term effects across the population at all ages and there some known specific risks for boys at a certain age group that has caused some countries to pause using these vaccines at certain age groups. 5. They don’t prevent infection in the same way that we understand other vaccines to work. 6. We have not yet established that the vaccine provides a greater severe disease protection rate in children beyond their already existing rate against severe disease Covid (there are just not enough kids experiencing severe disease to make a statistically significant prediction of vaccine protection).
I’m a thrice vaccinated individual, and I believe the risk/reward ratio for the vaccine for folks above 50 is frankly a no brainer decision. However, if I had young children…I’d be hesitant about vaccinating them with an mRNA Covid-19 vaccine and I think it’s simply much better to vaccinate the at risk population around the kids at this time where the severe Covid disease risk ratios are higher.
3-5% of the adult population have serious immune deficiency and are at very high risk (the vaccine has limited to zero impact on them). Everyone else (including children) getting vaccinated protects them.