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Comment by x0x0 | Hacker News Reader

Per the cdc [1], the US has 250 deaths from covid ages 0-4 and an additional 573 ages 5-18.

Compare [2] to an estimated 216 deaths ages 0-4 and an additional 156 ages 5-17 from the flu in 2018-2019.

Those aren't perfectly comparable -- we took serious additional measures against covid that we don't take against the flu. On the other hand, how much actual masking of the 4 and under set is going on in preschool or kindergarten?

[1] https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Provisional-COVID-19-Deaths-Focus-...

[2] https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2018-2019.html

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I know all my children under the age of 4 (3 of them) are able to receive a flu vaccine though. I would assume quite a few parents are doing the same. So not quite apples to apples. That being said the risk to children that age for COVID is quite low, and I would not be shutting down schools or even forcing masks. Those are important to development of children especially since it disproportionally affects low income children. So I agree that the risk of COVID to children is small, and extreme measures should not be taken. My only issue was comparing two things that probably cannot fairly be compared.

Flu vaccines are hit and miss each year, and (cdc) only reduce risk by 40-60%. So it's a pretty comparable risk, and we're being given natural experiments like Texas and Florida to really test that hypothesis.

I dunno what the right measures are to take for kids that young, but the difference we're seeing between the flu measures we (mostly don't) take and some anti covid measures for young children is hard to explain.

And any time someone says, um, the data appears to show that covid is not actually that dangerous to young children, you get people (who I'm 99% sure don't lock their kids in the house for flu season) having a fit that you're risking their lives.

Isn’t the flu vaccine a bit of a crap shoot though? There’s I believe 7 variants of the flu, and the one vaccine we get every year is a bit of a educated guess [1] such that the flu vaccine may not actually do anything helpful at all. I don’t think this is a strong argument.

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/flu/prevent/vaccine-selection.htm

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