6 ms·

Ah yes, the whole "Most people won't show symptoms so that's okay" ploy. Next you'll be saying "kids are basically immune"

by selykg 6y ago

catalogia 6y ago
...Are they not?
- shadowgovt 6y ago
  Kids are, sadly, not immune. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6931e1.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6931e1.htm
  - catalogia 6y ago
    > Basically immune That link doesn't really contradict that. It contradicts actually immune, since kids can obviously catch it. However most, particularly young children, don't show symptoms. And most of those that do show symptoms only have mild symptoms. So yes, basically immune. Kids don't have much to fear themselves, the concern is that they'll infect adults who actually do have something to fear.
    - shadowgovt 6y ago
      I see what you mean. I wouldn't classify that as "basically immune;" "less susceptible to deadly symptoms" maybe. Immunity should include a lack of ability to communicate the disease, which is not demonstrated at all. ... and I still wouldn't put money on children being immune enough to, say, safely open schools even if we discard the child->adult transmission risk. Over half the youngest demographic in the Georgia camp were infected, and children are dying from this disease, even if at a lower rate than adults (how much lower is a really important question).
      - catalogia 6y ago
        > and children are dying from this disease, even if at a lower rate than adults (how much lower is a really important question). The data I've found is: Under 1: 15 deaths 1-4: 10 deaths 5-14: 20 deaths 15-24: 225 deaths The curve continues from there, peaking at 45,845 for 85 years or older. So yes, some kids do die, or at least they had covid when they died. But if this were all covid was, we certainly wouldn't have closed schools for the kids' sake over this. Clearly schools are closed due to the threat posed to teachers. https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Provisional-COVID-19-Death-Counts-by-Sex-Age-and-S/9bhg-hcku https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Provisional-COVID-19-Death-Counts-...
        shadowgovt 6y ago
        What does that look like relative to the infection count? That's the numbers I can't get easy access to; it may be the case we've simply successfully kept the disease away from places children frequent. I'm hoping that's not the dominant factor in the numbers, because school re-opening will be real ugly if it is.
        catalogia 6y ago
        > it may be the case we've simply successfully kept the disease away from places children frequent. That might be true to a degree, however the discrepancy is so huge, 2-3 orders of magnitude, that it should be pretty clear kids really do have much less to fear. I think some Olympic-level contortionism is needed to come to any other conclusion.
        em500 6y ago
        The Dutch CDC (locally known as RIVM) concluded that risk to young children is very low, and Dutch schools have been open since early May based on this understanding. In the Netherlands, 0.6% of the reported hospitalisations involved children under the age of 18, and 0 death have been reported under this age. Here's the summary page of the RIVM: https://www.rivm.nl/en/novel-coronavirus-covid-19/children-and-covid-19 https://www.rivm.nl/en/novel-coronavirus-covid-19/children-a... Some googling reveals only corroborating reports that the case fatality (CFR) rate among young children is very low: https://ec.europa.eu/knowledge4policy/sites/know4pol/files/jrc120420_covid_risk_and_age.pdf https://ec.europa.eu/knowledge4policy/sites/know4pol/files/j... https://ourworldindata.org/mortality-risk-covid#case-fatality-rate-of-covid-19-by-age https://ourworldindata.org/mortality-risk-covid#case-fatalit... https://www.publichealthontario.ca/-/media/documents/ncov/epi/2020/06/covid19-epi-case-identification-age-only-template.pdf https://www.publichealthontario.ca/-/media/documents/ncov/ep... AFAICT if you just try to synthesize the existing research without prejudice, you'd have to conclude that the risk of young children dying from COVID-19 is very low. Whether there is much risk of children -> adult transmission is more difficult to answer.
cwhiz 6y ago
Seems a little pedantic or legalistic to argue that kids aren’t functionally immune to covid. Less than 2% of cases in the US have been kids under the age of 18. Of the ones that tested positive, less than 10% had symptoms. Three total children have died in the US from complications relating to covid. It’s more dangerous to drive your kid to the park than it is to let your kid play in the park.
- paulmd 6y ago
  The kids themselves probably won't die from the infection, but they certainly are a near-ideal vector to spread it to other people. One might hypothesize that kids have done pretty well because, you know, schools have been near-uniformly closed, so their "places of employment" have been near-100% remote. I bet the COVID numbers look pretty good for work-from-home tech workers too, that doesn't mean tech workers are "nearly immune" to COVID. It's just a numbers game and if COVID starts to pick up big time then it'll surge through schools. You're spending 8 hours a day in close contact with 8 different sets of 30 students who rotate every hour, plus crowded halls and busses and all that stuff. Then you go home to Grandma and she gets it. It's already happening: https://www.businessinsider.com/schools-reopen-coronavirus-spreads-already-2020-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/schools-reopen-coronavirus-s... > Although kids are less likely to get severe coronavirus cases, mounting evidence suggests they can spread the virus. Most children have the same amount of virus in their upper respiratory tracts as adults do, according to a research letter published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, and children under 5 may have between 10 and 100 times more virus than adults (though this doesn't necessarily mean they spread the virus more efficiently).
  - matz1 6y ago
    Grandma may or may not get it, even if she get it doesn't mean she is going to be 100% die. Given her age, any small diseases could kill her.

Ah yes, the whole "Most people won't show symptoms so that's okay" ploy. Next you'll be saying "kids are basically immune"

by selykg 6y ago

Ah yes, the whole "Most people won't show symptoms so that's okay" ploy. Next you'll be saying "kids are basically immune"

catalogia 6y ago

...Are they not?

shadowgovt 6y ago
Kids are, sadly, not immune. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6931e1.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6931e1.htm
- catalogia 6y ago
  > Basically immune That link doesn't really contradict that. It contradicts actually immune, since kids can obviously catch it. However most, particularly young children, don't show symptoms. And most of those that do show symptoms only have mild symptoms. So yes, basically immune. Kids don't have much to fear themselves, the concern is that they'll infect adults who actually do have something to fear.
  - shadowgovt 6y ago
    I see what you mean. I wouldn't classify that as "basically immune;" "less susceptible to deadly symptoms" maybe. Immunity should include a lack of ability to communicate the disease, which is not demonstrated at all. ... and I still wouldn't put money on children being immune enough to, say, safely open schools even if we discard the child->adult transmission risk. Over half the youngest demographic in the Georgia camp were infected, and children are dying from this disease, even if at a lower rate than adults (how much lower is a really important question).
    - catalogia 6y ago
      > and children are dying from this disease, even if at a lower rate than adults (how much lower is a really important question). The data I've found is: Under 1: 15 deaths 1-4: 10 deaths 5-14: 20 deaths 15-24: 225 deaths The curve continues from there, peaking at 45,845 for 85 years or older. So yes, some kids do die, or at least they had covid when they died. But if this were all covid was, we certainly wouldn't have closed schools for the kids' sake over this. Clearly schools are closed due to the threat posed to teachers. https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Provisional-COVID-19-Death-Counts-by-Sex-Age-and-S/9bhg-hcku https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Provisional-COVID-19-Death-Counts-...
      - shadowgovt 6y ago
        What does that look like relative to the infection count? That's the numbers I can't get easy access to; it may be the case we've simply successfully kept the disease away from places children frequent. I'm hoping that's not the dominant factor in the numbers, because school re-opening will be real ugly if it is.
        catalogia 6y ago
        > it may be the case we've simply successfully kept the disease away from places children frequent. That might be true to a degree, however the discrepancy is so huge, 2-3 orders of magnitude, that it should be pretty clear kids really do have much less to fear. I think some Olympic-level contortionism is needed to come to any other conclusion.
        em500 6y ago
        The Dutch CDC (locally known as RIVM) concluded that risk to young children is very low, and Dutch schools have been open since early May based on this understanding. In the Netherlands, 0.6% of the reported hospitalisations involved children under the age of 18, and 0 death have been reported under this age. Here's the summary page of the RIVM: https://www.rivm.nl/en/novel-coronavirus-covid-19/children-and-covid-19 https://www.rivm.nl/en/novel-coronavirus-covid-19/children-a... Some googling reveals only corroborating reports that the case fatality (CFR) rate among young children is very low: https://ec.europa.eu/knowledge4policy/sites/know4pol/files/jrc120420_covid_risk_and_age.pdf https://ec.europa.eu/knowledge4policy/sites/know4pol/files/j... https://ourworldindata.org/mortality-risk-covid#case-fatality-rate-of-covid-19-by-age https://ourworldindata.org/mortality-risk-covid#case-fatalit... https://www.publichealthontario.ca/-/media/documents/ncov/epi/2020/06/covid19-epi-case-identification-age-only-template.pdf https://www.publichealthontario.ca/-/media/documents/ncov/ep... AFAICT if you just try to synthesize the existing research without prejudice, you'd have to conclude that the risk of young children dying from COVID-19 is very low. Whether there is much risk of children -> adult transmission is more difficult to answer.

cwhiz 6y ago

Seems a little pedantic or legalistic to argue that kids aren’t functionally immune to covid. Less than 2% of cases in the US have been kids under the age of 18. Of the ones that tested positive, less than 10% had symptoms. Three total children have died in the US from complications relating to covid. It’s more dangerous to drive your kid to the park than it is to let your kid play in the park.

paulmd 6y ago
The kids themselves probably won't die from the infection, but they certainly are a near-ideal vector to spread it to other people. One might hypothesize that kids have done pretty well because, you know, schools have been near-uniformly closed, so their "places of employment" have been near-100% remote. I bet the COVID numbers look pretty good for work-from-home tech workers too, that doesn't mean tech workers are "nearly immune" to COVID. It's just a numbers game and if COVID starts to pick up big time then it'll surge through schools. You're spending 8 hours a day in close contact with 8 different sets of 30 students who rotate every hour, plus crowded halls and busses and all that stuff. Then you go home to Grandma and she gets it. It's already happening: https://www.businessinsider.com/schools-reopen-coronavirus-spreads-already-2020-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/schools-reopen-coronavirus-s... > Although kids are less likely to get severe coronavirus cases, mounting evidence suggests they can spread the virus. Most children have the same amount of virus in their upper respiratory tracts as adults do, according to a research letter published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, and children under 5 may have between 10 and 100 times more virus than adults (though this doesn't necessarily mean they spread the virus more efficiently).
- matz1 6y ago
  Grandma may or may not get it, even if she get it doesn't mean she is going to be 100% die. Given her age, any small diseases could kill her.