[pessimizer]

The problem is that they give it to old people, not that they rarely die from it. I'm pretty sure people under 70 have an quite moderate risk of dying of covid (as compared to other endemic diseases that don't cause world lockdowns.) The problem is that they give it to old people.

[GekkePrutser]

But the old people are now all vaccinated so they won't get it or at least won't get really sick. I'm sure some will but a lot of the risk has been mitigated. There will always have to be some measure of risk we have to accept. We can't eliminate it completely.

I'm a bit worried that because of a year and a half of mass fear even the slightest risk of covid will be blown up.

I saw this effect here in Barcelona. There was an article on young people thinking they could not get covid. And an ICU nurse was quoted saying that's not true and they have a girl there who is bad.

But this doesn't take into account that the numbers are so low. Many young people die because of traffic accidents and the like. There has to be a point where we say it's mitigated enough and just move on with life.

I'm not saying we're there yet but we should start talking about where that point is.

[danenania]

All the fear, isolation, and disruption to their normal lives has also had a very negative psychological impact on kids. I've seen many who are clearly developing phobias and anxiety issues. The rare and hypothetical long term risks of covid to children (and the mild risks to vaccinated adults) need to be balanced against these ubiquitous and very non-hypothetical adverse psychological effects. On a population level, I believe the evidence points to there being far more risk in the latter.

A society that sacrifices the psychological wellbeing of its children to prevent moderate illness in adults has really screwed up its priorities, and that's increasingly the situation in places where the most at-risk have been vaccinated.

[alibarber]

At some point last year I read an article, probably in the Guardian, about what school was like at the time (when it was open) for the kids. Not allowed their own toys, forced to stand on markers on the ground, not allowed to mix with their friends or just play in the dirt and be, y’know, kids. I don’t have children, but I really started to question whether it was worth it - the poor things.

[lclarkmichalek]

Doesn’t sound too dissimilar to schools before the pandemic. They weren’t exactly libertarian paradises

[alibarber]

No they’re not - but it wasn’t all that long ago that I was in school myself and it sounded extremely dissimilar to how I remember it - particularly for younger kids, who spend all day outside of lessons running around yelling and playing sports or doing activities and all.

[nostrademons]

What era? My own childhood (in the 80s) was filled with recess and free-play and gym class. However, I got the perception from parents of kids who attended elementary school in the late 00s and 10s that recess has been cut or dramatically shortened and nearly everything is scheduled and academically-oriented. This predates COVID, and is a consequence of the general climate of fear and hyper-competitiveness that's followed the 08-09 financial crisis.

My kid plays in the dirt, but he does it with me, not at preschool (where apparently they don't even do play-dough and sand these days). He does have some recess & free-play time - I can't imagine managing a 3-year-old without it - but it's time-boxed into 30 minute increments.

[blacktriangle]

It wasn't worth it.

[alibarber]

Honestly - I have to agree with you, no matter how unpopular an opinion that is. I got to watch my elderly relatives die long before COVID was a thing, which was of course very sad. But no one tried to take my childhood away to prevent it (which it wouldn’t have anyway) - like what seems to be happening now to some extent.

[aksss]

IME, there are far more anxiety issues with “kids today” than there were before turn of century. IMO, this is not a mysterious phenomenon - kids take adults seriously, and adults have been involving kids in political awareness to a degree that is evidently unhealthy. Talking about how the world will end because of climate change, the end of democracy, COVID will kill everyone who goes outside. Adults hear this and either bin the talk as hyperbole or the testimony of certifiable wingnuts, but kids tend to internalize this stuff, hearing hyperbole as serious prediction. We wonder why kids are full of anxiety - try sheltering kids more from the kind of BS that circulates on infotainment news channels. There’s time enough for kids to become world weary and wise; help them to enjoy carefree living while they’re children and you might get more confident and less anxious kids out of it.

[wussboy]

I agree that it’s time we started putting COVID risks in to perspective. Yes, the Delta variant is more transmissible that regular. But to a fully vaccinated person, is it more or less of a concern now than automobile accidents or other viruses?

[hanniabu]

Until there's more data on the long term effects and what we've heard so far of the long term effects, and then adding in the drop in vaccine effectiveness and new variants and the lower vaccine effectiveness against those variants, I'm going to continue to be cautious and concerned with all the handwaving and "it's over" rhetoric.

[throwawaysea]

Why isn’t the same caution exercised when it comes to the long term effects of lockdowns and mask mandates on children, adults’ mental health, the economy, etc?

[wussboy]

#whataboutism

[GekkePrutser]

It's not really whataboutism IMO because these are 2 sides of the same coin. One balances the other. Whataboutism applies to unrelated topics.

[tzs]

To put some numbers on it, in the US [1] from February 2020 - March 2021:

• For age 65+, the infection rate was 23% and the hospitalization rate 4.9%.

• For age 5-17, the infection rate was 42% and the hospitalization rate was 0.27%.

Kids 5-17 were actually the group with the highest infection rate, followed closely by 18-49 at 41%, then 50-64 at 31%, and 0-4 tied with 65+ at 23%.

The hospitalization rates strictly went up with age: 0.26% for 0-4, 0.27% for 5-17, 0.98% for 18-49, 2.3% for 50-64, and 4.9% for 65+.

I wonder if we would have done better to keep the schools open the first few months, but as boarding schools until most children have had it. Once nearly all children have had it, school goes fully back to normal.

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burd...

[Wowfunhappy]

> I wonder if we would have done better to keep the schools open the first few months, but as boarding schools until most children have had it. Once nearly all children have had it, school goes fully back to normal.

A few problems:

• Parents have to agree to not see their children for several months.

• Adults need to be present to supervise / teach the children, and they will be at risk from COVID.

• Early on, there was debate about whether contracting COVID led to immunity. (I personally thought people were being overly cautious about this, but even so.)

Taken together, I just don't see it working.

I am surprised we didn't see any college campuses (which really are boarding schools) attempt to isolate themselves. Both students and staff (!) are not allowed to leave campus or invite guests, and must quarantine for two weeks before arrival—but in return, you get to live a normal college life. It would be a huge commitment for professors with families, however.

[aksss]

Blessed are those that illustrate with data

[mikem170]

I wonder if there's any data on this from countries that did a lot of contact tracing.

On the one hand, I thought it strange a year ago when some authorities based policy on the assumption that kids didn't spread it. On the other hand if kids are mostly asymptomatic it would make sense that they don't spread it as much. I know that private schools in my area were running normal classes, en masse nothing bad seemed to happen.

Hard data would be nice to see, if it's out there.

Also, old people can be vaccinated now, so fears over children spreading it to vulnerable population is becoming a moot point.

[vlunkr]

Sure, but that wasn't really the point of the article.

[throwawaysea]

So what if they can transmit it? That means the vulnerable should restrict themselves and wear full body PPE everywhere or stay at home. The rest of society, including children who lost critical time in their growth, shouldn’t have to alter their lifestyle just so the elerrrly can have some semblance of normalcy by being out and about.

Apart from that, there have been numerous studies showing kids transmit less than others, and this was known mid last year (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200710100934.h...). European countries reacted rationally by opening schools earlier while politically motivated decisions were made in America to keep the country and economy locked down in an intense election year.