7 ms·

The assertion that 'it spreads among teens who don't get long-COVID' is 'unscientific' on the obvious basis that they become major vectors of spread and infect

by jariel 6y ago

The assertion that 'it spreads among teens who don't get long-COVID' is 'unscientific' on the obvious basis that they become major vectors of spread and infect other people who will get it, some will die. This: 'All those people before COVID who claimed to have chronic Lyme disease, doctors tell us, likely didn't, and long-COVID self-reporting and anecdotes is the same thing. ' Is a little bit of a wild claim ('they're all lying!') and unsubstantiated.

kaczordon 6y ago
What? The majority of people experience no symptoms. Schools(children up to 15/16) are not vectors for disease this is well known now thanks to Sweden’s common sense policies. Comparison between Finland and Sweden: https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/contentassets/c1b78bffbfde4a7899eb0d8ffdb57b09/covid-19-school-aged-children.pdf https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/contentassets/c1b78bffbf...
- newacct583 6y ago
  This is misstating the science. Pre-teen school environments have not been documented as being centers of superspreader events, owing to lots of factors (including better adherence in school environments to other mitigation strategies like mask wearing and distancing; schools are better organized and MUCH more rule-compliant than society at large!). It is not true that kids don't get covid. It is not true that kids don't spread covid.
  - kaczordon 6y ago
    Again, what?? Schools in Sweden had no special restrictions other than washing hands and desks and making sure to have recess outside. 16 is not pre-teen either. Check out this article that shows students hugging and socializing during the pandemic: https://www.thelocal.se/20201210/how-does-a-swedish-school-deal-with-the-pandemic/ https://www.thelocal.se/20201210/how-does-a-swedish-school-d... Also you didn’t read the report: “Closing of schools had no measurable effect on the number of cases of covid- 19 among children”. They are not major vectors of transmission for COVID.
    - newacct583 6y ago
      And again, you're citing a single study (and now a media piece) showing the lack of superspreader events and trying to generalize to "kids don't get covid", and that's simply wrong. Children get covid. Children spread covid. This is documented, and it happens. That SCHOOLS specifically seem not to be superspreader vectors is interesting, but not particularly informative about anything other than school policy. As far as this odd celebration of a clearly failed national policy, just remember: https://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/?chart=countries-normalized&highlight=Sweden&show=highlight-only&y=both&scale=linear&data=deaths&data-source=jhu&xaxis=right&extra=Norway%2CFinland%2CDenmark#countries-normalized https://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/?chart=countr... The fact that Sweden guessed right on schools and wrong on everyone else really should be guiding you to the opposite intuition here.
      - kaczordon 6y ago
        Lol the reason I posted a news article is because you said: including better adherence in school environments to other mitigation strategies like mask wearing and distancing; schools are better organized and MUCH more rule-compliant than society at large! which for Sweden is clearly not true, they didn’t even wear masks in school. And I never said kids don’t get COVID I said schools aren’t major drivers of transmission. Feel free to continue misreading what I wrote though.
- jariel 6y ago
  No, kids are 100% a vector of COVID, almost much as any other group. That some cases go without symptoms is besides the point. Kids are almost as likely to get COVID as any other group [1], they are just a lot less likely to die. The epidemiological data on that has been consistent for some months now. The study you presented was a short time-frame at the very start of the pandemic. COVID is a wildly infectious disease, so the notion that 'kids don't die from it it so it's ok' is really bad logic: everyone who has symptoms, spreads, and causes other people to get it which creates the pandemic. Also - you have provided no evidence for your wild claim that all the 'long-covid people were lying about their lyme disease'. [1] https://health-infobase.canada.ca/covid-19/epidemiological-summary-covid-19-cases.html https://health-infobase.canada.ca/covid-19/epidemiological-s... (0-19 year-olds are the 2cnd highest cohort. Granted it's a bigger cohort, that said, they are getting infected at very meaningful rates i.e. they are spreaders)
  - kaczordon 6y ago
    Swedish schools have been open all year and that report used a time period of 5 months COVID was well underway in Europe. Isn’t it odd that there was no spike in the virus after the protests and riots in the US? Millions of people were out in the streets packed together.
    - jariel 6y ago
      You're misrepresenting the data, and also it's not refuting my point which is: 'children get COVID and spread it' - which they do, unambiguously. The data was 5 months, starting in January, long before COVID started. The comparable time-frame was short and it's only a very rough comparison - 'everything' about policies in nations, rates of infection (time of onset) would have been different. Since then, we have much more data, and we know unambiguously that children get and spread COVID. That 'people at protests' were or were not super-spreading is besides the point unless you're trying to suggest that 'COVID does not spread' at all? Those events took place outdoors during the summer among healthy people. Since September, with colder weather and more indoor activity (and the start of school), the growth of COVID has been quite spectacular. 550 000 Americans have died from COVID. It's affected everyone. But all of this is moot: COVID is dangerous not because of individual effects, but because of how rapidly it spreads. The thing that makes COVID a pandemic is the easy by which it gets into the population. Because one group is much less likely to die is not hugely important if they serve as vectors for the disease which kills others. From an epidemiological perspective, kids spread it almost like adults, and therefore 'are a cause' almost like adults. It's great they don't die, but that's only 1/2 of the story. We have to make sure to keep children from getting infected, just as we do adults. In short: children should be vaccinated, we may do them last but we can't ignore the population and assume 'it will be fine because they won't die'.
- yyyk 6y ago
  Wasn't this based on a 'research' by a scientist that had to fudge its statistics and was linked to Tegnell (the man responsible for Sweden's Corona policy). [0] https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/03/critics-slam-letter-prestigious-journal-downplayed-covid-19-risks-swedish https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/03/critics-slam-letter-...
  - Gibbon1 6y ago
    I can't think of Tegnell without thinking of the doctors and nurses they catch murdering patients. Seriously he has to be completely aware that his policies resulted in a 10X death rate compared to neighboring countries.

by jariel 6y ago

kaczordon 6y ago

What? The majority of people experience no symptoms. Schools(children up to 15/16) are not vectors for disease this is well known now thanks to Sweden’s common sense policies. Comparison between Finland and Sweden: https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/contentassets/c1b78bffbfde4a7899eb0d8ffdb57b09/covid-19-school-aged-children.pdf https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/contentassets/c1b78bffbf...

newacct583 6y ago
This is misstating the science. Pre-teen school environments have not been documented as being centers of superspreader events, owing to lots of factors (including better adherence in school environments to other mitigation strategies like mask wearing and distancing; schools are better organized and MUCH more rule-compliant than society at large!). It is not true that kids don't get covid. It is not true that kids don't spread covid.
- kaczordon 6y ago
  Again, what?? Schools in Sweden had no special restrictions other than washing hands and desks and making sure to have recess outside. 16 is not pre-teen either. Check out this article that shows students hugging and socializing during the pandemic: https://www.thelocal.se/20201210/how-does-a-swedish-school-deal-with-the-pandemic/ https://www.thelocal.se/20201210/how-does-a-swedish-school-d... Also you didn’t read the report: “Closing of schools had no measurable effect on the number of cases of covid- 19 among children”. They are not major vectors of transmission for COVID.
  - newacct583 6y ago
    And again, you're citing a single study (and now a media piece) showing the lack of superspreader events and trying to generalize to "kids don't get covid", and that's simply wrong. Children get covid. Children spread covid. This is documented, and it happens. That SCHOOLS specifically seem not to be superspreader vectors is interesting, but not particularly informative about anything other than school policy. As far as this odd celebration of a clearly failed national policy, just remember: https://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/?chart=countries-normalized&highlight=Sweden&show=highlight-only&y=both&scale=linear&data=deaths&data-source=jhu&xaxis=right&extra=Norway%2CFinland%2CDenmark#countries-normalized https://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/?chart=countr... The fact that Sweden guessed right on schools and wrong on everyone else really should be guiding you to the opposite intuition here.
    - kaczordon 6y ago
      Lol the reason I posted a news article is because you said: including better adherence in school environments to other mitigation strategies like mask wearing and distancing; schools are better organized and MUCH more rule-compliant than society at large! which for Sweden is clearly not true, they didn’t even wear masks in school. And I never said kids don’t get COVID I said schools aren’t major drivers of transmission. Feel free to continue misreading what I wrote though.
jariel 6y ago
No, kids are 100% a vector of COVID, almost much as any other group. That some cases go without symptoms is besides the point. Kids are almost as likely to get COVID as any other group [1], they are just a lot less likely to die. The epidemiological data on that has been consistent for some months now. The study you presented was a short time-frame at the very start of the pandemic. COVID is a wildly infectious disease, so the notion that 'kids don't die from it it so it's ok' is really bad logic: everyone who has symptoms, spreads, and causes other people to get it which creates the pandemic. Also - you have provided no evidence for your wild claim that all the 'long-covid people were lying about their lyme disease'. [1] https://health-infobase.canada.ca/covid-19/epidemiological-summary-covid-19-cases.html https://health-infobase.canada.ca/covid-19/epidemiological-s... (0-19 year-olds are the 2cnd highest cohort. Granted it's a bigger cohort, that said, they are getting infected at very meaningful rates i.e. they are spreaders)
- kaczordon 6y ago
  Swedish schools have been open all year and that report used a time period of 5 months COVID was well underway in Europe. Isn’t it odd that there was no spike in the virus after the protests and riots in the US? Millions of people were out in the streets packed together.
  - jariel 6y ago
    You're misrepresenting the data, and also it's not refuting my point which is: 'children get COVID and spread it' - which they do, unambiguously. The data was 5 months, starting in January, long before COVID started. The comparable time-frame was short and it's only a very rough comparison - 'everything' about policies in nations, rates of infection (time of onset) would have been different. Since then, we have much more data, and we know unambiguously that children get and spread COVID. That 'people at protests' were or were not super-spreading is besides the point unless you're trying to suggest that 'COVID does not spread' at all? Those events took place outdoors during the summer among healthy people. Since September, with colder weather and more indoor activity (and the start of school), the growth of COVID has been quite spectacular. 550 000 Americans have died from COVID. It's affected everyone. But all of this is moot: COVID is dangerous not because of individual effects, but because of how rapidly it spreads. The thing that makes COVID a pandemic is the easy by which it gets into the population. Because one group is much less likely to die is not hugely important if they serve as vectors for the disease which kills others. From an epidemiological perspective, kids spread it almost like adults, and therefore 'are a cause' almost like adults. It's great they don't die, but that's only 1/2 of the story. We have to make sure to keep children from getting infected, just as we do adults. In short: children should be vaccinated, we may do them last but we can't ignore the population and assume 'it will be fine because they won't die'.
yyyk 6y ago
Wasn't this based on a 'research' by a scientist that had to fudge its statistics and was linked to Tegnell (the man responsible for Sweden's Corona policy). [0] https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/03/critics-slam-letter-prestigious-journal-downplayed-covid-19-risks-swedish https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/03/critics-slam-letter-...
- Gibbon1 6y ago
  I can't think of Tegnell without thinking of the doctors and nurses they catch murdering patients. Seriously he has to be completely aware that his policies resulted in a 10X death rate compared to neighboring countries.