[Mordisquitos]

At an individual clinical level they may not be at significant risk, but the justification for vaccinating them is not about individual clinical risks but public health. As far as I can tell, the potential risks of vaccinating children are overwhelmingly outweighed by the potential public health risks of them spreading the virus, acting as a reservoir, or suffering severe cases of the disease, however rare.

That is, unless we want to take "the long road" to the scenario I mentioned above. Yes, we could expect this to be eventually over by waiting until the population develops significant immunity because children usually catch the disease at school, spread it around, and the more vulnerable people in the population are little by little reduced in numbers. However, I personally prefer the vaccination shortcut.

[premium-gecko]

> At an individual clinical level they may not be at significant risk, but the justification for vaccinating them is not about individual clinical risks but public health.

This is a very serious mistake. The duty of a doctor is to the patient in front of them and no one else. The question they have to consider is, is this proposed treatment more likely than not to help this particular patient? If so, the doctor advises the patient to undergo the procedure. If not, they advise against it. If a doctor is considering anything other than the health of the person presently before them, they need to make that clear, that they are treating a herd rather than a specific patient.

> As far as I can tell, the potential risks of vaccinating children are overwhelmingly outweighed by the potential public health risks

That's not the calculus. The question is the risk/benefit for them individually. And, I will add, the risk for even just them as individuals is not known. Some people are advising that the vaccines could cause very significant injury, e.g. https://odysee.com/@OracleFilms:1/Dr.-Sucharit-Bhakdi-Oracle...

[Mordisquitos]

You're talking about the duty of a doctor with regards to their individual patient, but I'm taking about the duty of public health agencies with regards to the population as a whole.

But fair enough, let's focus on the individual patient. The fact that a child is now 10 years old and would most likely suffer from asymptomatic or mild COVID-19 if they were to catch it today says nothing about their possible condition if they catch it in 20, 30, or 40 years time. As long as SARS-CoV-2 is circulating in the population, and it will be for the near future, deciding not to vaccinate a child because they are at low risk at this very moment is at best wishful thinking about their future, and at worst an active hope that they catch the virus and develop some level of immunity before it is likely to harm them significantly. And if some people are advising that the vaccines could cause very significant injury, they are more than welcome to publish their findings in a scientific journal rather than producing online films about it.