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Comment by chithanh | Hacker News Reader

Vaccines still lower disease severity.

Also vaccines reduce risk of some post-acute COVID disorders like MIS-C (which can result even from asymptomatic COVID).

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7102e1.htm

And of course you don't want to infect your child with a disease that has long term consequences which we are still learning about. Diabetes hit the news recently in the US, but it is actually been known for a while in other countries.

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7102e2.htm

https://diabetesjournals.org/care/article/43/11/e170/35903/N... (UK)

https://adc.bmj.com/content/early/2021/05/27/archdischild-20... (Finland)

If that wasn't bad enough, diseases that are associated with T1D like celiac disease are on the rise, and show stronger association in COVID patients:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/apa.16173

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>Vaccines still lower disease severity.

Not for kids under 5. That's why it's not approved.

>And of course you don't want to infect your child with a disease

Breakthrough cases are so common now that the media refuses to use the term anymore. That (lack-of) "preventing-infection" efficacy is baked into the <5 study that showed no benefit.

>that has long term consequences which we are still learning about.

Why is this a valid concern, but potential long-term effects of the vaccines aren't? Especially the known risk of inflammation in still-growing bodies and especially in developing hearts.

>>Vaccines still lower disease severity. >Not for kids under 5. That's why it's not approved.

Wrong. Per the Pfizer press release [0], the immunogenicity analysis of the trial failed in children ages 2 to 4, but succeeded in children ages six months to two years. Given the small dose (3ug) in that study cohort, there was probably not enough rna in the vaccine for the 2-4 age group to show any effect.

>Why is this a valid concern, but potential long-term effects of the vaccines aren't? Especially the known risk of inflammation in still-growing bodies and especially in developing hearts.

The risk of developing myocarditis from the vaccine is about 100-150 in 5 million [1]. The risk of developing myocarditis from COVID-19 is about 150 in 100,000 [2]. I know I'm picking the vaccine for my child.

[0] https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-deta... [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02740-y [2] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7035e5.htm

edited for typos.

The first diagram in the first study you referenced [1] puts the observed rate of myocarditis among patients -without- COVID at 450 per 5 million (9 per 100k). That is much higher than the rate of myocarditis among the entire vaccinated Israeli [2] cohort (125 per 5 million) you mentioned.

The issue is that you're not comparing apples to apples. The Israeli data is looking at the entire population that received the vaccine. The COVID study is only looking at hospitalized patients with/without COVID which is a subset of the entire population restricted entirely to those experiencing the most severe symptoms.

This is not an easy problem to solve. A more apples to apples comparison [3] puts the COVID:vaccine myocarditis ratio at about 6:1, but it also suffers from a bias. In order to measure those rates they relied on the population that tested positive for COVID. This excludes the population of individuals which were infected with COVID but did not received a diagnosis who presumably also had a near 0 rate of myocarditis. This bias [presumably] becomes more pronounced at lower age groups where COVID displays milder symptoms making it less likely to end up diagnosed.

Finally, there is also the consideration that while the vaccines have not yet changed - COVID has. And its likely that the omicron strain will have a different distribution of side effects. It's a difficult problem to solve, and conflicts of interest abound make it all even more challenging.

[1] - https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7035e5.htm [2] - https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02740-y [3] - https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.23.21260998v...

What other respiratory virus in human history has caused chronic long term effects to the young and healthy?

Statistically we should be much more worried about something like RSV or the flu (even after vaccination).

We do have knowledge about long-term effects from other coronaviruses (SARS-CoV-1 and MERS).

Despite its name, SARS-CoV-2 is not strictly a "respiratory virus". While it is spread airborne, it attacks multiple tissues besides the respiratory system, and causes multi-system dysfunction (including but not limited to MIS-C, type 1 diabetes, celiac disease, acute kidney injury, erectile dysfunction, ...). Many of the damages are immune-mediated, which is in line with what we know about T1D and celiac as autoimmune disorders.

> What other respiratory virus in human history has caused chronic long term effects to the young and healthy?

Pneumonia.

And what’s the likelihood of a young child developing myocarditis from COVID? You can’t apply whole population statistics to children blindly. If COVID has shown us anything it’s that diseases can discriminate.

I’m all for getting kids vaccinated when it’s deemed safe and effective (my daughter got vaccinated the first week it was available). But the risk to kids is quite low.

To be legally 2g compliant I need to boost every 4 months. Apparently the risk for inflammation might even get higher with each boost. If I'd catch COVID every 2 years or so how much does my risk rise for every infection?

< https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7102e1.htm

The study you cite specifically excludes those under 5.

> Vaccines still lower disease severity.

As does early treatment, https://c19early.com

Vaccine efficacy decays monthly (Delta/2021), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSZMtSPX3iE

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