7 ms·

> I am just so confused why some people are acting like kids are a different species when it comes to covid. Well, it's not that surprising when you have a di

by umvi 6y ago

> I am just so confused why some people are acting like kids are a different species when it comes to covid. Well, it's not that surprising when you have a disease whose harm factor is a function of your age. The vast majority of covid deaths are the elderly. The tiniest minority of covid deaths are young children. Their ability to spread to adults is their biggest risk factor, not the disease itself.

UncleOxidant 6y ago
Sure, but they can pass it as easily as an adult can (saw a recent paper that said that children under 5 have higher viral loads than adults so they might actually be more infectious). There's a myth that kids can't pass it, but it's only a myth.
- mortehu 6y ago
  > they can pass it as easily as an adult can Sounds like you're using a proxy result (viral load instead of shedding or actual transmission) in a single unnamed paper to make a pretty strong assertion?
bendotero 6y ago
> Their ability to spread to adults is their biggest risk factor, not the disease itself. But that's one of the biggest unknowns. While children are at far lower risk of dying, according to data we have, we still don't know about long term health effects and we're finding out new information all the time. And much of that new information doesn't seem great.
buhhh 6y ago
Are you confusing harm with death rates? It's a novel virus and we still do not know the long term health impacts of it.
- renewiltord 6y ago
  Everything novel has this problem, and fortunately our epistemology is up to the task. We set our priors to a weighted linear combination of other similar things and then revise as evidence comes in. For instance, MMR II was approved in 1978. How do we know that people who were given MMR II won't spontaneously die at the age of 60? Or perhaps to bring it closer to another problem, how do we know they won't spontaneously develop Autism Spectrum Disorder at the age of 60? There hasn't been time. It's a pretty novel vaccine.
  - tptacek 6y ago
    There is no indication whatsoever that MMR has likely long-term health effects, and there are indications that C19 could have long-term health effects, and what we appear to learn month by month is more alarming, not less, with respect to the question of whether or not C19 is a "you either die of it in a month or you're fine" situation. It also doesn't have to be a universal effect for it to generate effectively universal concern among parents. If it turned out that 1/20 kids suffered permanent kidney damage due to infection, most parents would keep their kids home. Look at the stats on school shootings and note that we pointlessly traumatize kids to assuage the concerns of parents. That's your figure of merit: that's how powerful the long-term C19 effect would need to be to change the behavior of the median parent.
    - renewiltord 6y ago
      I agree with these (hopefully not incorrectly) restated things I think you believe: * It is more likely that MMR has few significant long-term health effects than if COVID-19 does * COVID-19 effects are unlikely to be binary outcome * Effects need not be universal for them to affect parental behaviour However, none of that agreement is important to the discussion I was hoping to have. My comment was solely on the epistemology. I suspect you also use the same methods I was talking about in my previous comment. If that is the case, then perhaps some other day we can argue about what the priors are. If we're good about it, we'll end up with the Aumann Agreement Theorem (+ corollaries) result, and rapidly agree (through likely both of us shifting our priors as we exchange information). I think we have no disagreement and am happy to conclude this here.
_jal 6y ago
> Their ability to spread to adults is their biggest risk factor Others have mentioned this, but just for emphasis: you do not know that. Nor does anyone else. Repeating it is irresponsible, and you should stop doing that. There have been a lot of lessons the epidemic can teach us. But one big one is that magical thinking is still accepted as a substitute for reason by a frightening number of people, and that's before you get to the outright grifters.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  Nobody knows anything for sure, but "the virus might be causing huge hidden damage to kids" is in the same kind of unlikely tail risk as "social distancing might be building up so much social pressure it'll cause a violent revolution". Sure, it might be, but speculation like that can't be a primary factor in decisionmaking.
- koolba 6y ago
  But we do know that. Or at least we can glean as much based upon the distribution by age for hospital admittance and death. We don’t know what, if any, the long term consequences will be. But the short term death risk for young children appears to be minimal.
  - tptacek 6y ago
    The difference in worry parents have over short term and "long term" death risks for their kids is marginal. In particular: if something could happen to jeopardize your kids lives while they are still kids --- which we do not know --- it's an overwhelming worry. This is one of those conversations where message board logic stands a good chance of taking us far away from how real-world humans would reason.
    - jacquesm 6y ago
      I think all it really does is that it highlights the difference between those who have children and those who do not. As a parent, I couldn't care less about the monetary impact of COVID-19 beyond the basics to survive and the years have taught us to be very frugal when we need to be. Meanwhile, the thought of sending my kids back to school in two weeks has me sleepless (again). We have already seen different evidence surface in the last month or so but zero adjustment to the school plans. As much as I would like to approach this all in a dispassionate and rational way the parent 'module' in me tells me in no uncertain terms that I'm doing something irresponsible by not standing up for them more forcefully and trusting the experts on this.
kingkawn 6y ago
There is absolutely no proof that children will not have long term health impacts that could reverberate for the rest of their lives. There are signs of chronic health repercussions for adults who have been infected. There is no telling yet what we can expect for children as they grow.
- zaroth 6y ago
  You literally cannot prove a negative.
  - kingkawn 6y ago
    you can look at available data about chronic inflammation in people who have survived the initial infection. You can also look at data that a small number of kids are showing acute autoimmune reactions leading to severe illness and in a small number of cases death. You can then say, “we don’t know fully yet how big to expect this to be, but we should not risk exposing children to potentially life long health complications until we do.” Easy to reason through.
inamberclad 6y ago
We still have no idea what the long term effects of this disease are, or how they depend on severity.
- zaroth 6y ago
  We don’t know an infinite number of things. You can’t make decisions based on unknowns. You have to make decision based of evidence, not the lack of evidence.
  - nend 6y ago
    >You can’t make decisions based on unknowns. What? Of course you can. We know there's potential long term health effects in adults who get COVID-19, there's risk children face the same ones. We don't know how severe or how likely children are to get them (much like in adults), but we can absolutely decide not to take the risk anyway, and keep kids out of schools.
    - doorstar 6y ago
      Keeping kids out of school _is_ a decision, and not an easy one when having kids at home means the parents can't work.
      - jacquesm 6y ago
        This keeps being trotted out but is actually a solved problems. For those situations where both parents have to work and both have to work out of home the schools can stay open and give a limited number of pupils regular lessons. That way you cut down tremendously on a potential vector of transmission with as limited an impact as possible. We've done this here in NL successfully and in other countries besides.
      - eirini1 6y ago
        maybe the solution is that parents shouldn't have to work during a pandemic if they can't.
    - 6y ago
triceratops 6y ago
Even if the kids are fine, if both parents get sick at the same time it's going to be hell taking care of the kids. Especially when you can't hire outside help due to social distancing requirements.
- roland35 6y ago
  That is my biggest concern as well. Plus the reality that if both parents come down with serious symptoms the kids likely have it, so it would not be ideal to send the kids to other family members to watch long term
- ryanobjc 6y ago
  Also a lot of parents rely on... Grandparents to childcare when they are sick! "Hey Grandma can you take care of my covid-kid while I am slowly maybe dying here?" There is 0 societal support here.
ardy42 6y ago
> Well, it's not that surprising when you have a disease whose harm factor is a function of your age. The vast majority of covid deaths are the elderly. The tiniest minority of covid deaths are young children. Their ability to spread to adults is their biggest risk factor, not the disease itself. I think that's assuming that death is the only thing you have to worry about with this disease, and that if you don't die you'll recover and be no worse for wear. That may be a false assumption, and it could be that many children suffer from some kind of long term damage from the disease.
- nightski 6y ago
  I think a bigger problem is fear mongering like this without providing sources or data to back it up. People have become distrustful in general because frankly it's exhausting figuring out what is true and what isn't.
mnm1 6y ago
> Their ability to spread to adults is their biggest risk factor, not the disease itself. Even if this is true (we already have evidence it's not for some children), it's completely irresponsible to allow schools to open. We know children are infectious and easily spread the disease. There are other members of society besides children. Letting the virus run rampant in schools will lead to parents and other adults getting sick and dying. It's not ok for children to die but if their parents, grandparents, teachers, or parents' friends die it's somehow ok? What kind of logic is that?
- chasd00 6y ago
  there's other forces at work with the rush to open schools than just covid19. Keep in mind, extended unemployment is expiring as well as a number of other emergency programs. School is the only place where many kids get a semi-square meal regularly. For many kids it's also a much safer environment than not school.
  - mnm1 6y ago
    Then extend those programs. That should be obvious. Open up socially distanced food lines for kids and their parents that give out free food. None of this is impossible especially with the amount of wasted food we have. None of these problems lead to the conclusion that we should open schools when we can resolve these side issues in smarter, better ways that don't put the entire society at risk for covid. The House passed a relief bill 3 months ago. The failure of the Senate to do the same is simply inexcusable. That failure should not be the reason for even more people to die. This is so fucking absurd.

by umvi 6y ago

UncleOxidant 6y ago

Sure, but they can pass it as easily as an adult can (saw a recent paper that said that children under 5 have higher viral loads than adults so they might actually be more infectious). There's a myth that kids can't pass it, but it's only a myth.

mortehu 6y ago
> they can pass it as easily as an adult can Sounds like you're using a proxy result (viral load instead of shedding or actual transmission) in a single unnamed paper to make a pretty strong assertion?

bendotero 6y ago

> Their ability to spread to adults is their biggest risk factor, not the disease itself. But that's one of the biggest unknowns. While children are at far lower risk of dying, according to data we have, we still don't know about long term health effects and we're finding out new information all the time. And much of that new information doesn't seem great.

buhhh 6y ago

Are you confusing harm with death rates? It's a novel virus and we still do not know the long term health impacts of it.

renewiltord 6y ago
Everything novel has this problem, and fortunately our epistemology is up to the task. We set our priors to a weighted linear combination of other similar things and then revise as evidence comes in. For instance, MMR II was approved in 1978. How do we know that people who were given MMR II won't spontaneously die at the age of 60? Or perhaps to bring it closer to another problem, how do we know they won't spontaneously develop Autism Spectrum Disorder at the age of 60? There hasn't been time. It's a pretty novel vaccine.
- tptacek 6y ago
  There is no indication whatsoever that MMR has likely long-term health effects, and there are indications that C19 could have long-term health effects, and what we appear to learn month by month is more alarming, not less, with respect to the question of whether or not C19 is a "you either die of it in a month or you're fine" situation. It also doesn't have to be a universal effect for it to generate effectively universal concern among parents. If it turned out that 1/20 kids suffered permanent kidney damage due to infection, most parents would keep their kids home. Look at the stats on school shootings and note that we pointlessly traumatize kids to assuage the concerns of parents. That's your figure of merit: that's how powerful the long-term C19 effect would need to be to change the behavior of the median parent.
  - renewiltord 6y ago
    I agree with these (hopefully not incorrectly) restated things I think you believe: * It is more likely that MMR has few significant long-term health effects than if COVID-19 does * COVID-19 effects are unlikely to be binary outcome * Effects need not be universal for them to affect parental behaviour However, none of that agreement is important to the discussion I was hoping to have. My comment was solely on the epistemology. I suspect you also use the same methods I was talking about in my previous comment. If that is the case, then perhaps some other day we can argue about what the priors are. If we're good about it, we'll end up with the Aumann Agreement Theorem (+ corollaries) result, and rapidly agree (through likely both of us shifting our priors as we exchange information). I think we have no disagreement and am happy to conclude this here.

_jal 6y ago

> Their ability to spread to adults is their biggest risk factor Others have mentioned this, but just for emphasis: you do not know that. Nor does anyone else. Repeating it is irresponsible, and you should stop doing that. There have been a lot of lessons the epidemic can teach us. But one big one is that magical thinking is still accepted as a substitute for reason by a frightening number of people, and that's before you get to the outright grifters.

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
Nobody knows anything for sure, but "the virus might be causing huge hidden damage to kids" is in the same kind of unlikely tail risk as "social distancing might be building up so much social pressure it'll cause a violent revolution". Sure, it might be, but speculation like that can't be a primary factor in decisionmaking.
koolba 6y ago
But we do know that. Or at least we can glean as much based upon the distribution by age for hospital admittance and death. We don’t know what, if any, the long term consequences will be. But the short term death risk for young children appears to be minimal.
- tptacek 6y ago
  The difference in worry parents have over short term and "long term" death risks for their kids is marginal. In particular: if something could happen to jeopardize your kids lives while they are still kids --- which we do not know --- it's an overwhelming worry. This is one of those conversations where message board logic stands a good chance of taking us far away from how real-world humans would reason.
  - jacquesm 6y ago
    I think all it really does is that it highlights the difference between those who have children and those who do not. As a parent, I couldn't care less about the monetary impact of COVID-19 beyond the basics to survive and the years have taught us to be very frugal when we need to be. Meanwhile, the thought of sending my kids back to school in two weeks has me sleepless (again). We have already seen different evidence surface in the last month or so but zero adjustment to the school plans. As much as I would like to approach this all in a dispassionate and rational way the parent 'module' in me tells me in no uncertain terms that I'm doing something irresponsible by not standing up for them more forcefully and trusting the experts on this.

kingkawn 6y ago

There is absolutely no proof that children will not have long term health impacts that could reverberate for the rest of their lives. There are signs of chronic health repercussions for adults who have been infected. There is no telling yet what we can expect for children as they grow.

zaroth 6y ago
You literally cannot prove a negative.
- kingkawn 6y ago
  you can look at available data about chronic inflammation in people who have survived the initial infection. You can also look at data that a small number of kids are showing acute autoimmune reactions leading to severe illness and in a small number of cases death. You can then say, “we don’t know fully yet how big to expect this to be, but we should not risk exposing children to potentially life long health complications until we do.” Easy to reason through.

inamberclad 6y ago

We still have no idea what the long term effects of this disease are, or how they depend on severity.

zaroth 6y ago
We don’t know an infinite number of things. You can’t make decisions based on unknowns. You have to make decision based of evidence, not the lack of evidence.
- nend 6y ago
  >You can’t make decisions based on unknowns. What? Of course you can. We know there's potential long term health effects in adults who get COVID-19, there's risk children face the same ones. We don't know how severe or how likely children are to get them (much like in adults), but we can absolutely decide not to take the risk anyway, and keep kids out of schools.
  - doorstar 6y ago
    Keeping kids out of school _is_ a decision, and not an easy one when having kids at home means the parents can't work.
    - jacquesm 6y ago
      This keeps being trotted out but is actually a solved problems. For those situations where both parents have to work and both have to work out of home the schools can stay open and give a limited number of pupils regular lessons. That way you cut down tremendously on a potential vector of transmission with as limited an impact as possible. We've done this here in NL successfully and in other countries besides.
    - eirini1 6y ago
      maybe the solution is that parents shouldn't have to work during a pandemic if they can't.
  - 6y ago

triceratops 6y ago

Even if the kids are fine, if both parents get sick at the same time it's going to be hell taking care of the kids. Especially when you can't hire outside help due to social distancing requirements.

roland35 6y ago
That is my biggest concern as well. Plus the reality that if both parents come down with serious symptoms the kids likely have it, so it would not be ideal to send the kids to other family members to watch long term
ryanobjc 6y ago
Also a lot of parents rely on... Grandparents to childcare when they are sick! "Hey Grandma can you take care of my covid-kid while I am slowly maybe dying here?" There is 0 societal support here.

ardy42 6y ago

> Well, it's not that surprising when you have a disease whose harm factor is a function of your age. The vast majority of covid deaths are the elderly. The tiniest minority of covid deaths are young children. Their ability to spread to adults is their biggest risk factor, not the disease itself. I think that's assuming that death is the only thing you have to worry about with this disease, and that if you don't die you'll recover and be no worse for wear. That may be a false assumption, and it could be that many children suffer from some kind of long term damage from the disease.

nightski 6y ago
I think a bigger problem is fear mongering like this without providing sources or data to back it up. People have become distrustful in general because frankly it's exhausting figuring out what is true and what isn't.

mnm1 6y ago

> Their ability to spread to adults is their biggest risk factor, not the disease itself. Even if this is true (we already have evidence it's not for some children), it's completely irresponsible to allow schools to open. We know children are infectious and easily spread the disease. There are other members of society besides children. Letting the virus run rampant in schools will lead to parents and other adults getting sick and dying. It's not ok for children to die but if their parents, grandparents, teachers, or parents' friends die it's somehow ok? What kind of logic is that?

chasd00 6y ago
there's other forces at work with the rush to open schools than just covid19. Keep in mind, extended unemployment is expiring as well as a number of other emergency programs. School is the only place where many kids get a semi-square meal regularly. For many kids it's also a much safer environment than not school.
- mnm1 6y ago
  Then extend those programs. That should be obvious. Open up socially distanced food lines for kids and their parents that give out free food. None of this is impossible especially with the amount of wasted food we have. None of these problems lead to the conclusion that we should open schools when we can resolve these side issues in smarter, better ways that don't put the entire society at risk for covid. The House passed a relief bill 3 months ago. The failure of the Senate to do the same is simply inexcusable. That failure should not be the reason for even more people to die. This is so fucking absurd.