[mabbo]

A: Because children pass COVID-19 on to older people who are highly likely to die.

It's like saying "Why fight forest fires? Very few people live in the forests." Because the fire will grow and burn down all the cities.

And also: because we can do both. All the elderly people (that are willing to take the safe and effective vaccine) are vaccinated. We have plenty of vaccines leftover. This isn't a matter of picking who gets it and who doesn't.

[ErikVandeWater]

That's a very poor answer since giving any medicine to a child with risks exceeding the benefits so that someone else could benefit would violate the Hippocratic Oath.

Also, there aren't plenty of vaccines leftover worldwide. Vaccines would be going to poorer countries that have low vaccination rates if those vaccines weren't being used for children.

[jacobolus]

The risk to 5–11 year olds of the mRNA Covid vaccines is ~0, orders of magnitude lower than the (still very low compared to older adults) risk of Covid. These are incredibly safe vaccines. Out of ~9 million vaccinations, there have been ~100 "serious" adverse effects reported, most of those fever or vomiting but also e.g. 5 experiencing new-onset seizures and 11 with (recovered or recovering) myocarditis. 2 girls (5 and 6) with "complicated medical histories" in "fragile health" died after vaccination, and their deaths are being investigated but are not believed to be caused by the vaccine https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm705152a1.htm?s_cid=...

Among 12–17 year olds, the vaccines result in on the order 200x reduction in hospitalization. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm705152a3.htm?s_cid=...

[cudgy]

How many kids have been exposed to covid? Almost all over the last 2 years with virtually no deaths. How many kids have received the vaccine? Very few over the last month with some reported complications like myocarditis for example.

Vaccines do not prevent transmission, so what benefit is there for children (and their families) getting this vaccine when the risk of the disease is virtually zero?

[jacobolus]

Hundreds of children have died of Covid in the USA out of tens of millions infected. This is obviously much lower than the risk to the unvaccinated elderly (like 3+ orders of magnitude lower), but every dead child is still a tragedy. A larger number of children (still relatively low compared to adults) experience chronic post-viral sequelae significantly harming their quality of life. Covid is among the riskiest diseases faced this year by young children in developed countries.

As I mentioned (see linked CDC document), as far as we can tell zero children 5–11 have died from the vaccine out of ~9 million vaccinated. There were 11 cases of myocarditis, all recovered or recovering. As far as anyone can tell the vaccine has caused no long-term harm to any young child. This is a truly remarkable safety record, better than many vaccines we mandate for all children for diseases less dangerous than Covid.

Vaccines do partially prevent transmission, both for a vaccinated index infected person (viral load goes down faster and course of infection is shortened) and when their contacts are vaccinated (reduces likelihood of being infected at all).

But it’s not perfect, especially with the omicron variant which partially evades antibodies (but does not evade T cell immunity).

> what benefit is there for children (and their families)

The benefits are:

(a) There is some protection against initial infection (very effective with the original and alpha/beta variants, very effective after a booster for delta, only partially effective for omicron; perhaps in the future there will be a variant-agnostic booster), which should get still more effective after a mild Covid infection. Eventually almost every person on the planet will be vaccinated and/or infected multiple times by Covid, and this population immunity is the only way out of the pandemic.

(b) Vaccination decreases risk of hospitalization and death vs. current Covid variants across all age groups including children by 2+ orders of magnitude. The adaptive immune system is extremely effective but it takes a while to learn to recognize new pathogens, making diseases much more dangerous to the immunologically naïve. Vaccines induce this learning up-front without the need for an accompanying high-risk infection.

(c) The omicron variant is putting more children in hospitals than previous variants, and an even more risky-to-children variant might become dominant in the future. T cell immunity induced by vaccines should continue to offer strong protection vs. future variants, because there is limited evolutionary pressure on the virus to evade it (whereas there is significant evolutionary pressure to evade antibodies).

(d) Children eventually grow up, and Covid is going to be circulating forever. An immunologically naïve person who encounters it at some later time (maybe decades in the future) is going to be hit much harder. An immunization for everyone now is a great insurance policy for the future.

[tragictrash]

This post is 100% wrong. Benefits outweigh the risks, and vaccine acceptance is a very big problem even in countries like south Africa.

I know its hard for some people, but we can't learn the info for you. Please be an adult when you use freedom of speech. These things you do have a real impact when you yell them into the echo chamber called facebook.

[Jimmc414]

It seems that many are missing the point that vaccines do not appear to mitigate transmissibility of covid, only severity.

[PragmaticPulp]

Reducing length of infection (via vaccination) reduces the amount of time someone is contagious. This reduces the number of people they infect.

Initial viral load of exposure is a variable in infection severity, though, so it’s not without value.

These things can’t be reduced to binary answers.

[Jimmc414]

Then why are vaccination rates correlated only to a reduction in COVID deaths and not a reduction in cases?

[ben_w]

Almost all cases now are a wildly more infectious variant than before. The virus isn’t a static target.

[PopeUrbanX]

Because an increase in total number of vaccinations have coincided with an increase in transmissibility of the virus due to emerging variants.

[Jimmc414]

Do you see evidence that cases are increasing in the unvaccinated much faster than in vaccinated? I'm not finding anything that supports that assertion. If you can point me in the right direction, I will look with an open mind.

[cameldrv]

Yes just take New York as one example: https://coronavirus.health.ny.gov/covid-19-breakthrough-data

[PopeUrbanX]

That's not at all what I just wrote. Read it again.

[cudgy]

Symptoms for vaccinated are less severe and possibly even asymptomatic, so vaccinated are less likely to quarantine when they contract Covid. This could infect more people not less.

Also, vaccinated are supposed to wait longer before testing for covid after exposure since they are more susceptible to false negative results. This also could infect more people and have a counter result.

[maxerickson]

If vaccinated people are highly infections for 15 minutes less than unvaccinated, that's mitigation. Your statement is extreme (of course my example is silly, but your statement is almost certainly wrong in a meaningful way).

[Jimmc414]

What is extreme about my statement? If you see evidence to the contrary, please share it.

[maxerickson]

There's blatant evidence all over the place. Vaccinated people are sick for less time, that provides mitigation of transmission.

[cameldrv]

Many studies have shown that the vaccines reduce infection and transmission. Less so for Omicron but it does reduce it.

[anthonypasq]

> A: Because children pass COVID-19 on to older people who are highly likely to die.

Am I living in 2020 or did I dream vaccines existing and being extremely effective? At this point, if you are vaccinated NO ONE is highly likely to die.

[nicoburns]

> This isn't a matter of picking who gets it and who doesn't.

I agree with everything except this. On a world wide level there are millions of unvaccinated adults.

[ben_w]

4.49 billion people including children.

Given the vaccine refusal rate in some countries, I wouldn’t be surprised if half of the currently unvaccinated don’t ever get one.

[cblconfederate]

Do the vaccines reduce infections, esp. omicron?

[tragictrash]

I think collecting data around this specific question namely infections rather than hospitalizations or deaths would be very difficult if not impossible. I think you can draw your own conclusions but as far as the data goes it's up for interpretation.

[guilhas]

So child sacrifice to save the old and sick?

[fimdomeio]

Well, there are some arguments that forest fires are getting worse and worse because we're never allowing natural smaller fires to occur.

Don't know at all if that holds up to COVID but if getting the virus develops stronger imunity than getting the vaccine, maybe spreading the vaccination to countries that are way behind might be the right priority.

[tragictrash]

Please go do research instead of speculating