[peyton]

You are conflating what makes sense to you with what makes sense to most people.

> I don't really understand this thinking. Yes, covid deaths in the under 18 group are a drop in the bucket compared to covid deaths in other age groups. But that's only because covid had such a massive toll in other age groups. We're still talking over a thousand deaths in the under 18 group, tens of thousands of hospitalizations, and many many more who had symptoms that persisted beyond a month. Even knocking those numbers down by half would be significant.

You are ignoring the comorbidities aspect GP was talking about.

> It's not security theater

Cloth masks are security theater. Nobody’s disputing properly worn N95s. GP is talking about what has been pushed for two years and the credibility that has been destroyed. They’re not talking about recent shifts.

[rallison]

> You are ignoring the comorbidities aspect GP was talking about.

Even if we split this into two groups - those under 18 with comorbidities, and those without, there's still good evidence for both groups to get vaccinated. I don't know if there is a good breakdown nationally, but even just looking at NYC, the evidence becomes compelling. NYC has a dataset that breaks down deaths by age group and by comorbidity status:

https://github.com/nychealth/coronavirus-data/blob/master/to...

For under 18, as of 9/11/21 (yes, I wish they'd push a more recent update), 29 total deaths, 19 with an underlying condition, 5 without, and 5 pending/unknown. Underlying conditions by NYC's metric is pretty broad:

> Underlying conditions currently include diabetes, lung disease, cancer, immunodeficiency, heart disease, hypertension, asthma, kidney disease, gastrointestinal/liver disease, and obesity.

So, in New York City alone, and as of nearly a year ago, you had 5 kids under the age of 18 with no known underlying conditions who died of Covid. Just an educated guess, but it's quite plausible we've had 100+ deaths nationally in the under 18 with no underlying conditions group. That alone is pretty strong evidence in favor of vaccinating everyone in the under 18 group, and not just those with underlying conditions.

All that said, the primary reason for vaccine mandates for schools is related to transmission. And here too, there is good efficacy.

Ultimately, the harm/benefit calculation is quite clear in favor of vaccinations for kids, outside of rare scenarios. The main debate is whether the risk of backlash from schools mandating vaccination is worth the clear benefits of increasing vaccine uptake in these age groups.

> Cloth masks are security theater. Nobody’s disputing properly worn N95s. GP is talking about what has been pushed for two years and the credibility that has been destroyed. They’re not talking about recent shifts.

Cloth masks reduce transmission. They're not great at doing so, but they do still have an effect. Surgical masks are better. KN94/N95/etc are much better. Yes, we should have long ago moved to surgical as the minimum viable mask in mask mandate scenarios. It's unfortunate that we didn't. But even still, cloth masks do still help a small amount.

[peteradio]

> we've had 100+ deaths nationally in the under 18 with no underlying conditions group. That alone is pretty strong evidence in favor of vaccinating everyone in the under 18 group, and not just those with underlying conditions.

That is perhaps beyond the measure of the study to even conclude that those are properly labelled data points. It is such a small number it would make sense to publish a report detailing exactly how each death played out, when they likely were exposed, by whom, and as best as possible what they were doing each hour of the days leading to death. They may have had no known underlying condition but what was unique about their situation that it led to death? Can this really happen to anyone as you seem to be suggesting? Surely it would be prudent to be sure? Advocating for mandated vaccines based on that slim evidence is not an exercise in harm reduction, its reckless.