[mattbuilds]

It's obvious to you because you are following a logical train of thought. These antivax people always do the same nonsense argument. It goes, COVID has risks and vaccines have risks, therefore it's impossible to know which is worse. It's literally the dril drunk driving tweet[1].

[1] https://twitter.com/dril/status/464802196060917762?lang=en

[gfodor]

I'm not anti-vax, the logical train of thought you are incapable of yourself is based on the very factual reality that COVID presents highly variable risk to people based on their age. This, in combination with the known risks of the vaccine, in combination with the extremely early stage of wide-scale deployment of the vaccine in children, in combination with Hippocratic principles, in combination with risk-adjusted thinking, leads to the conclusions that no, it is not completely obvious if a parent should make an appointment for their 5 year old to get a medicine EUA authorized a week ago.

Besides, if you're so smart, and it's so obvious, why do you think you're smart enough to state that Sweden, a modern country, is objectively wrong for banning mRNA vaccines for children?

In any case, my primary point was that it should be up to parents if they give their kids this vaccine, and when. Not the government mandating it.

[abakker]

I mostly agree with you. I think the nuance that is missing here is that the degree of risk is different.

We know the degree of risk from vaccines is low, both in the short and long term. The side effects harm few people, and are not catastrophic.

With viruses, we know that side effects in the long term are real, and can be catastrophic. It is the reason that girl are vaccinated against HPV - HPV is the leading cause of cervical cancer. This is a very big problem down the line, even though HPV itself is mostly asymptomatic.

So, it does not follow that avoiding Covid vaccine for children because the immediate likelihood of death from acute covid is the only issue. We are aware that the long term risk of viral infection can be very great with viruses. Avoiding infection is much better if the alternative is the possibility of cancer.

[gfodor]

> So, it does not follow that avoiding Covid vaccine for children because the immediate likelihood of death from acute covid is the only issue.

I never said it was the only issue. But neither is the only choice to give your kids the current approved vaccines ASAP or never give the vaccine to them ever.

Avoiding infection is much better if the alternative is the possibility of cancer. But of course, we don't know or plausibly think something like cancer is a long term risk of a COVID infection in children. Maybe one day we will realize such outcomes happen and then it would become much more sane to rush your kids to get the vaccine that day.

I think it's important to stick to what we know, about this virus, and these vaccines: we know that it is extremely rare for children to be hospitalized from COVID, and we know that it is extremely rare for diagnosed myocarditis. But what we also know is that as time goes on, we learn more. And especially for things where are very new, like using these vaccines have on children, we stand to learn a lot, quickly. So I think it's a bad frame to presume parents are pro- or anti- vax. Hesitancy is sane on this specific issue, and that's not to mean that other positions are insane, but what is insane is to impose this on parents who are hesitant at this present time, until we understand what, exactly, is going on with heart tissue.