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Comment by Synaesthesia | Hacker News Reader

The little risk you take by getting the vaccine is more than offset by the far lower risk of getting the disease, which has all kinds of implications.

Since it was approved for children by the FDA I assume they did rigourous testing

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> Since it was approved for children by the FDA I assume they did rigourous testing

Reminder that the two most senior FDA vaccine oversight officials resigned in protest before the age 5-11 EUA was approved.

Reminder that the previous FDA commissioner currently sits on Pfizer's board.

Reminder that regulatory capture of the FCC, SEC, and other govt. agencies is popularly accepted as fact, but somehow the FDA is immune to that criticism.

OK, now do that for the 50 or so other national health agencies that have independently approved these vaccines. Or did you forget that these vaccines have been reviewed and approved by thousands of qualified staff all over the world?

Reminder that many European countries do not suggest the vaccine for children, and some have even banned it in the case of Moderna.

The EU has approved Pfizer for children 5 and over. Moderna is still being reviewed for younger children. Exact guidelines may vary by country.

Overall, Pfizer has been approved in 137 countries and Modern in 85.

One EU country where the guidelines vary is Sweden, who are specifically not recommending COVID vaccines for 5-12 year old children.[1]

[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/sweden-decides-against-...

Every western country except the UK (who were criticized) approved it after the US. Many of those deferred to the FDA's judgment and rubber stamped as a formality.

> “I am pleased that Pfizer’s vaccine has undergone a critical phase with FDA approval,” said Health Minister Yuli Edelstein on Friday, just after the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee voted in support of the agency granting Emergency Use Authorization (EUA), which paved the way for the vaccine’s approval. “This is a huge message for Israeli citizens as well.” He said that he instructed his ministry’s staff to review the approval and submit their recommendations in the coming days so that vaccinations could start before the end of the month.

This was all fast-tracked with countries wanting to get in line for doses, remember?

Thinking-in-reverse, if the FDA flagged/rejected the approval, how many western countries do you think would have approved it within the same timeframe?

> Since it was approved for children by the FDA I assume they did rigorous testing

I wouldn't make this assumption, especially in light of the the conditions under which it was approved (extreme political pressure, rushed/bleeding edge data, etc.) It's probably fine, but my kids aren't going to be first in line because they are in the control group (https://xkcd.com/2576/).

it's worth the OP trying to find data on how much risk covid presents to their children and what the risks of the vaccine are. the UK has this risk calculator for COVID in adults: https://qcovid.org/ . I'm not sure if there is anything similar for children. probably, the risk of the vaccine or covid is so low for children it doesn't really matter what you do.

Children with no commorbidities have NO reason to get exposed to the risk of taking the vacine. Yes, it's a small risk, but ANY vaccine must be a cost benefit weighted decision. Rabies is a 100% lethal disease, but that is not a valid reason for everyone to get vaccinated for it, the risks of vaccinating everyone in this case outweigh the risk that a randomly selected person would eventually die from rabies. This whole discussion is so stupid, from the beggining everyone could see the stats and see who was at real risk or not from this disease.

Children are still susceptible to long-term complications from getting covid. Like you said, it's a cost benefit decision, but there's real risks associated with children getting covid that seem to be going unacknowledged given that, unlike rabies, millions are going to be infected with covid.

Also at this point EVERYONE is going to be infected by COVID. It's a highly contagious respiratory virus that's not only carried by humans, but animals too. This fantasy that all we have to do is vaccinate everyone and we will be alright really needs to die.

Vaccines are still shown to reduce risk of hospitalization and death even with omicron. So, if everyone is going to get it, wouldn't you rather be more protected when you get it?

The risk of hospitalization for children is virtually zero. The risk of hospitalization for healthy people under 50 is miniscule.

Risk of hospitalization for children aged < 5 years with Omicron is quite a bit higher than previous variants. Take a look at the CDC data, compare age groups this year vs. one year earlier.

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#covidnet-hospitali...

This trend exists because children are being tested for COVID after being admitted to the hospital for entirely unrelated issues (broken bones, etc). They're in the hospital _with_ COVID, not in the hospital _because_ of COVID.

I hear people say that, but is there research backing it up? I'm a bit dubious because inevitability is a common fall-back position in public affairs, similar to climate change deniers saying that climate change is inevitable so we just have to learn to adjust. They still get what they want, and try to create despair in their opponents.

It's gone endemic, the inevitability is on par with the common cold; you're almost certainly going to get exposed to some variant of it.

Plus AIUI Omicron has demonstrated recombinant replication, which means we're playing a flu-like cat and mouse game with the vaccines. Nobody in their right mind would argue we have any hope of effectively vaccinating everyone against influenza.

Repeating it isn't evidence or even an argument that it's true. Is there evidence? Research?

Pardon me for assuming HN readers are capable of basic keyword searches:

https://virological.org/t/omicron-is-a-multiply-recombinant-...

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2787944

Would you like me to wipe your ass next as well?

Rabies doesn't spread like covid...

COVID isn't deadly like rabies either. Indeed COVID is turning out to be less deadly than the flu for the vast majority of people, especially the more recent variants. While being far more virulent they are also far less likely to make one seriously ill, let alone kill.

Over 800,000 people have died in the US alone, more than any other event in US history.

2M people die every year in the USA, is that more than any other event in History?

such lunacy

They clearly mean from one specific event. What one event in the USA has lead to 2 million deaths? You're combining all deaths and treating it as if it were the same thing.

>You're combining all deaths and treating it as if it were the same thing.

Couldn't that be applied to deaths from other diseases? Why wouldn't all influenza deaths be considered one event by this standard?

No? Are we in an influenza pandemic or epidemic right now? Again, we're talking about events here.

There have been six of them in the last 140 years with respect to influenza. The Spanish Flu pandemic killed 675k (in the USA, like 50 mil worldwide or something wild like that.)

Any other event in US history.

If you're so sure, name one.

Civil war was less than a million, by the way.

It wasn't. Heart disease and cancer kill far more people on an annual basis and nobody bats an eye. According to the CDC, these were the top 10 causes of death in 2020[1]:

* Heart disease: 696,962

* Cancer: 602,350

* COVID-19: 350,831

* Accidents (unintentional injuries): 200,955

* Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 160,264

* Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 152,657

* Alzheimer’s disease: 134,242

* Diabetes: 102,188

* Influenza and Pneumonia: 53,544

* Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 52,547

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm

all are lower than 800,000

The 800,000 figure spans two years. The above figures are for one year (2020).

> Heart disease and cancer kill far more people on an annual basis and nobody bats an eye

I mean there are massive institutes, companies, and laboratories engaged in research on both these topics, tons of fund-raising, campaigns to improve diet and exercise, shockingly expensive treatments and so on. Other than all of that, yes, nobody bats an eye.

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