[BobbyJo]

> The data is changing on this all the time, and not enough time has passed since the beginning of the pandemic to really nail down long-term effects of infection.

This is a point in favor of vaccination no? Especially when the topic is children.

[collias]

It's a neutral point. Neither the vaccine or the virus have been around long enough for long-term data.

[BobbyJo]

I'd hardly consider 'we have no idea what the long term effects of this disease are' a neutral point. Would you rather catch the flu, or a new virus that has no symptoms and hasn't hurt anyone in the last 3 months since it showed up? If you had to think about that at all, then you have to admit a lack of long-term risk data is itself a risk when it comes to viruses.

The relative risk that the vaccine has some unknown long term side effect is far smaller than a virus, especially when you consider that the vaccines are composed of non-replicating parts of the virus.