[newacct583]

This meme just won't die. It's a pandemic. It doesn't matter whether any given individual is at risk directly, becuase everyone can get this. Everyone sick, whether they live or die, means more people sick.

This conflation between individual risk and aggregate risk is just pathological at this point. It won't stop.

[__blockcipher__]

What about the overwhelming body of evidence showing that specifically children rarely if ever infect adults with COVID-19?

I expected children to be virtually incapable of dying from it, but learning the truth about spread was quite surprising to me.

[newacct583]

> What about the overwhelming body of evidence showing that specifically children rarely if ever infect adults with COVID-19?

I don't know what you're citing. There are a few papers out there showing effects like this, there's certainly no "overwhelming" evidence of anything in a pandemic that's barely seven months old, be real.

> but learning the truth about spread was quite surprising to me

That phrasing freaks me out a bit. What, exactly, are you reading? This is science, that kind of certainty is a design smell.

[__blockcipher__]

s/truth/the current reality which is well-supported by the literature/ if it makes you happy. Don't read too much into the wording.

As far as the overwhelming body of evidence, let's start with some weaker but still reasonable evidence:

https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/contentassets/c1b78bffbf...

> In conclusion, closure or not of schools had no measurable direct impact on the number of laboratory confirmed cases in school-aged children in Finland orSweden. The negative effects of closing schools must be weighed against the positive indirect effects it might have on the mitigation of the covid-19 pandemic.

https://www.eurosurveillance.org/content/10.2807/1560-7917.E...

Title: No evidence of secondary transmission of COVID-19 from children attending school in Ireland, 2020 separator commenting unavailable

> Children are thought to be vectors for transmission of many respiratory diseases including influenza [2]. It was assumed that this would be true for COVID-19 also. To date however, evidence of widespread paediatric transmission has failed to emerge

> Among 1,001 child contacts of these six cases there were no confirmed cases of COVID-19. In the school setting, among 924 child contacts and 101 adult contacts identified, there were no confirmed cases of COVID-19.

> In summary, examination of all Irish paediatric cases of COVID-19 attending school during the pre-symptomatic and symptomatic periods of infection (n = 3) identified no cases of onward transmission to other children or adults within the school and a variety of other settings. These included music lessons (woodwind instruments) and choir practice, both of which are high-risk activities for transmission. Furthermore, no onward transmission from the three identified adult cases to children was identified.

> The only documented transmission that occurred from this cohort was between adults in a working environment outside school. Among 1,025 child and adult contacts of these six cases in the school setting there were no confirmed cases of COVID-19 during the follow-up period. Follow-up period was at least one incubation period (14 days) from last contact with a case.

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/10/20-2403_article

> Children are underrepresented in coronavirus disease (COVID-19) case numbers (1,2). Severity in most children is limited, and children do not seem to be major drivers of transmission (3,4). However, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infects children of all ages (1,3). Despite the high proportion of mild or asymptomatic infections (5), they should be considered as transmitters unless proven otherwise.

^ Note I included the "they should be considered as transmitters until included otherwise" to ward off accusations of cherry-picking

---

Now, even if children did spread normally, I would still be against school closures, indeed I am against the policy of containment entirely because I view it as an infantile and ineffective policy that just leads to worsened all-cause mortality and likely worsened COVID-19 mortality over the medium-term.

There is one last study that I am having trouble finding which was much stronger/more conclusive than the ones I linked above, but I'm having trouble finding it. Really need to organize these studies better. (I have a master list of studies w/ relevant tidbits but haven't done that for the children studies since it doesn't interest me as much, given we already know that children don't personally die from COVID-19 in any real numbers)

[newacct583]

None of that is the kind of evidence that you'd use to justify the kind of hyperbole you used above. Kids definitely don't seem to get sick from this disease with the frequency we'd expect. And this should absolutely inform policy on the margins. You'd open a school before a senior's choir for sure, etc...

But you don't play games here. This age dependency is just barely measured, not understood well AT ALL (it actually runs counter to the way almost all other respiratory viruses work!), and based on measurements that at best are a few months old. Most of the papers in this space are preprints, peer review is just now catching up.

Just stop. A few links doesn't make for proof in this space. People will die if we get it wrong.

[__blockcipher__]

Yes, people will die if we get it wrong by engaging in a destructive policy of lockdown.

That's your problem. You and everyone in your camp acts as if all the uncertainty exists in the "herd immunity" side. It doesn't. The risks of SARS-2 infection are much better bounded than the risks of unprecedented lockdown and economic destabilization. Full stop.