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Comment by david-gpu | Hacker News Reader

> our paediatrician in the US gave us a long lecture about why vaccines are important and this and that. He's an older gentleman and wouldn't brook any of my interruptions that I've been through this and to please proceed with the vaccination schedule [...]

> Presumably his insistence on the subject was because of hesitancy.

> In the end, we got the usual ones but didn't give our daughter the COVID vaccine

Perhaps the doctor deserves some slack.

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Haha you guys are funny. We went along with every one that he recommended. Just a straightforward Yes To All. The COVID vaccine wasn't on the list. No manual opt-out. There's a manual opt-in but I'm fine with things as they stand.

I should have known better than to mention that. For obvious reasons this one virus is a bit of a politicized subject and activates the outrage machine.

I've got no problem with our paediatrician. Rather like him, if I'm being honest. Wouldn't be going back for every subsequent appointment if I did have a problem. The "long lecture" bit is more affectionate than complaining.

COVID vaccination for healthy children is not necessary because the benefit is small compared to the risk (but still considered positive and vaccination is recommended when there are certain risk factors). It is indeed unfortunate that this discussion is politicized.

Considering many (most?) countries such as the UK, Germany, Australia, Spain, etc. don’t vaccinate healthy children for COVID because there’s basically no reason to, which presumably the doctor knows, he probably wasn’t disappointed. Having a blanket policy of vaccinating healthy children against COVID, especially now, was a terrible ideologically-driven idea that almost certainly drove more people to be antivaxers.

"I'm not like those vaccine hesitant people, I just hesitated about a vaccine!"

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