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"People choosing not to vaccinate are putting him at risk". This might not exactly be the strongest point to make, as the Covid IFR rate for those under 17 is 2

"People choosing not to vaccinate are putting him at risk". This might not exactly be the strongest point to make, as the Covid IFR rate for those under 17 is 20 in 1,000,000, or a 99.998% survival rate. Sure, there's a non-zero chance of death but it's effectively zero. It's great to say we should reduce risks further as a society, but is it really worth the costs to reduce risks like that further? Source: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scena...

aqme28 5y ago
Consider then my family member, who is elderly and immuno-compromised such that the vaccine may not be effective.
- newaccount2021 5y ago
  The goalposts will never stop moving, will they? Alright, I'll bite - here is the solution to your problem: move your elderly, immuno-compromised ward into a hermetically sealed facility and do not permit visitors of any kind. Problem solved. If they're truly immuno-compromised, they're just as susceptible to thousands of other communicable viral loads, so they're not much better off even if society becomes 100% vaccinated against covid. What's left, pets?
- nradov 5y ago
  Immunocompromised people always have been at risk and always will be at risk. The presence of one more endemic coronavirus doesn't really change anything. Other endemic coronaviruses already have a high fatality rate in that population. I don't mean to minimize your family member's situation but that's just medical reality. https://academic.oup.com/jid/article/223/9/1564/5899001 https://academic.oup.com/jid/article/223/9/1564/5899001
  - hvac 5y ago
    Having an already-high baseline risk before adding covid is a reason to be more cautious, not less. The point is that this particular vector is so trivially preventable.
paulmd 5y ago
"IFR" (infection fatality rate) is not the be-all end-all metric of danger. you don't have to die to suffer harmful long-term consequences from COVID, it appears to cause all kinds of organ damage including to the brain, this includes "the young", and these people usually did not suffer "severe" acute reactions during their infection. https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4470 https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4470 https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20210401/many-show-long-term-organ-damage-after-covid#1 https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20210401/many-show-long-term... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/28/health/covid-psychosis-mental.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/28/health/covid-psychosis-me... it's not safe to get covid period the end, even if you're "young" and even if it doesn't kill you outright or even hospitalize you. it's still a dangerous disease and the spread still needs to be minimized.
- dwaltrip 5y ago
  What are the numbers on how often people are having those effects?
  - paulmd 5y ago
    In a University of Washington longitudinal study, 32.7% of participants had persistent long-term side effects, and around 9% had moderate to severe long-term side effects. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2776560 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle... Really don't know why some people are so determined to deny that COVID is a serious disease with a decent incidence rate of serious side effects. 10% of the population getting moderate to serious side effects from a single source within a year is a lot, and it sucks if you're that 10%! And another 20% get minor side effects on top of that. And it isn't just "the old" or anything like that, those side effects cut across the whole population, young and old. I guess it's just the next iteration of the old "it's no worse than the flu" denialism. But a single bout of the flu doesn't leave 10% of the population with serious long-term side effects.
    - spfzero 5y ago
      It wouldn't be 10% of the population, though, right? It would only be 10% of the people who caught a case of the flu bad enough to be hospitalized or outpatient-treated?
driverdan 5y ago
Are you seriously implying that the only negative outcome is death? Some people have long term side effects. Even if you fully recover if you have a bad case you could be out of work for a long period of time. The negative impact is significantly higher on the poor who can't afford health insurance or to take time off. Stop looking at death and look at the total impact.
- nradov 5y ago
  Lockdowns have also had a high negative impact on the poor around the world by preventing them from working and earning income. Hunger is more dangerous to many of those people than COVID-19.
magnetic 5y ago
Remember that death isn't the only bad outcome: just because you survive doesn't mean you're out of the woods, unfortunately. I'm afraid "Long COVID" is a thing, for adults and children. "Evidence from the first study of long covid in children suggests that more than half of children aged between 6 and 16 years old who contract the virus have at least one symptom lasting more than 120 days, with 42.6 per cent impaired by these symptoms during daily activities. " There are folks that are still debilitated, almost a year after their "recovery". We don't know if/when their sequelae will disappear. Time will tell. Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7927578/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7927578/
- irq11 5y ago
  This isn’t a paper, it’s an editorial, and it’s utter trash, printed in a bad “journal” (New Scientist is essentially a mass-market magazine, on par with Discover). The only evidence advanced for the claim is this: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.23.21250375v1.full-text https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.23.21250375v... This is a survey of parent-reported symptoms in 129 children, and of the “long-term” symptoms, all are vague, (e.g. headache, fatigue, muscle pain) overlapping substantially with the aches and pains of daily life. They don’t even bother to link to it directly in the editorial; they simply mention the doi in the text. This wasn’t even proofread by an editor.
wffurr 5y ago
How hard is it to get vaccinated? Just get the fucking shot.
- godfreyantonell 5y ago
  did you get yours?
- watersb 5y ago
  We had to wait until just this last week to receive second doses. Shots have been rationed and rolled out by appointment only in our state. That said, now everyone in our family is fully vaccinated.
unanswered 5y ago
Unless I'm mistaken, if we look strictly at risk of serious injury and death — not inconvenience and cost of hospital admission, etc. — then it should be less deadly to enter a crowded public place while infected with COVID than to enter the same crowded public place eating peanuts messily. Of course, you shouldn't do either, and you should probably doubly not do the COVID thing; I'm just trying to get a baseline of risk to compare to.

aqme28 5y ago

Consider then my family member, who is elderly and immuno-compromised such that the vaccine may not be effective.

newaccount2021 5y ago
The goalposts will never stop moving, will they? Alright, I'll bite - here is the solution to your problem: move your elderly, immuno-compromised ward into a hermetically sealed facility and do not permit visitors of any kind. Problem solved. If they're truly immuno-compromised, they're just as susceptible to thousands of other communicable viral loads, so they're not much better off even if society becomes 100% vaccinated against covid. What's left, pets?
nradov 5y ago
Immunocompromised people always have been at risk and always will be at risk. The presence of one more endemic coronavirus doesn't really change anything. Other endemic coronaviruses already have a high fatality rate in that population. I don't mean to minimize your family member's situation but that's just medical reality. https://academic.oup.com/jid/article/223/9/1564/5899001 https://academic.oup.com/jid/article/223/9/1564/5899001
- hvac 5y ago
  Having an already-high baseline risk before adding covid is a reason to be more cautious, not less. The point is that this particular vector is so trivially preventable.

paulmd 5y ago

"IFR" (infection fatality rate) is not the be-all end-all metric of danger. you don't have to die to suffer harmful long-term consequences from COVID, it appears to cause all kinds of organ damage including to the brain, this includes "the young", and these people usually did not suffer "severe" acute reactions during their infection. https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4470 https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4470 https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20210401/many-show-long-term-organ-damage-after-covid#1 https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20210401/many-show-long-term... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/28/health/covid-psychosis-mental.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/28/health/covid-psychosis-me... it's not safe to get covid period the end, even if you're "young" and even if it doesn't kill you outright or even hospitalize you. it's still a dangerous disease and the spread still needs to be minimized.

dwaltrip 5y ago
What are the numbers on how often people are having those effects?
- paulmd 5y ago
  In a University of Washington longitudinal study, 32.7% of participants had persistent long-term side effects, and around 9% had moderate to severe long-term side effects. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2776560 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle... Really don't know why some people are so determined to deny that COVID is a serious disease with a decent incidence rate of serious side effects. 10% of the population getting moderate to serious side effects from a single source within a year is a lot, and it sucks if you're that 10%! And another 20% get minor side effects on top of that. And it isn't just "the old" or anything like that, those side effects cut across the whole population, young and old. I guess it's just the next iteration of the old "it's no worse than the flu" denialism. But a single bout of the flu doesn't leave 10% of the population with serious long-term side effects.
  - spfzero 5y ago
    It wouldn't be 10% of the population, though, right? It would only be 10% of the people who caught a case of the flu bad enough to be hospitalized or outpatient-treated?

driverdan 5y ago

Are you seriously implying that the only negative outcome is death? Some people have long term side effects. Even if you fully recover if you have a bad case you could be out of work for a long period of time. The negative impact is significantly higher on the poor who can't afford health insurance or to take time off. Stop looking at death and look at the total impact.

nradov 5y ago
Lockdowns have also had a high negative impact on the poor around the world by preventing them from working and earning income. Hunger is more dangerous to many of those people than COVID-19.

magnetic 5y ago

Remember that death isn't the only bad outcome: just because you survive doesn't mean you're out of the woods, unfortunately. I'm afraid "Long COVID" is a thing, for adults and children. "Evidence from the first study of long covid in children suggests that more than half of children aged between 6 and 16 years old who contract the virus have at least one symptom lasting more than 120 days, with 42.6 per cent impaired by these symptoms during daily activities. " There are folks that are still debilitated, almost a year after their "recovery". We don't know if/when their sequelae will disappear. Time will tell. Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7927578/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7927578/

irq11 5y ago
This isn’t a paper, it’s an editorial, and it’s utter trash, printed in a bad “journal” (New Scientist is essentially a mass-market magazine, on par with Discover). The only evidence advanced for the claim is this: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.23.21250375v1.full-text https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.23.21250375v... This is a survey of parent-reported symptoms in 129 children, and of the “long-term” symptoms, all are vague, (e.g. headache, fatigue, muscle pain) overlapping substantially with the aches and pains of daily life. They don’t even bother to link to it directly in the editorial; they simply mention the doi in the text. This wasn’t even proofread by an editor.

wffurr 5y ago

How hard is it to get vaccinated? Just get the fucking shot.

godfreyantonell 5y ago
did you get yours?
watersb 5y ago
We had to wait until just this last week to receive second doses. Shots have been rationed and rolled out by appointment only in our state. That said, now everyone in our family is fully vaccinated.

unanswered 5y ago

Unless I'm mistaken, if we look strictly at risk of serious injury and death — not inconvenience and cost of hospital admission, etc. — then it should be less deadly to enter a crowded public place while infected with COVID than to enter the same crowded public place eating peanuts messily. Of course, you shouldn't do either, and you should probably doubly not do the COVID thing; I'm just trying to get a baseline of risk to compare to.