5 ms·

Absolutely not the case. Children should be vaccinated. The Israeli study was useful in establishing that infection results in immunity. That’s it. It does not

by ttul 5y ago

Absolutely not the case. Children should be vaccinated. The Israeli study was useful in establishing that infection results in immunity. That’s it. It does not establish that infection is lower risk than vaccination. Children are at low risk from COVIS

ttul 5y ago
Pushed reply too soon. Children are at low risk, but not no risk. To the extent that kids are running around with infections, they’re transmitting virus to others and providing a reservoir for mutation. That is not productive. Let’s get the kids vaccinated. It’s the cheapest way out of this thing.
- angelzen 5y ago
  > providing a reservoir for mutation. That is FUD and you should be ashamed of yourself. I have listened to scared people trying to blame people that are not vaccinated for the fact that vaccines are not that effective at preventing infection and that mild breakthrough infections are common. Most of it done with rather troubling political undertones. Such is life in US 2021. I don't like it, but I'll not engage directly. Hopefully the FUD will pass. But obviously the largest percentage of unvaccinated people are children, which do not NEED the vaccine, at least according to the data we have so far. I will not tolerate scapegoating of kids. Please get a grip.
  - xxpor 5y ago
    >I have listened to scared people trying to blame people that are not vaccinated for the fact that vaccines are not that effective at preventing infection and that mild breakthrough infections are common. Completely ridiculous. https://kingcounty.gov/depts/health/covid-19/data/vaccination-outcomes.aspx https://kingcounty.gov/depts/health/covid-19/data/vaccinatio... They're not perfect, but arguing they're not that effective is just stupid.
    - angelzen 5y ago
      A. I reject on principle the reasoning that X must undergo unnecessary medical procedure to lower hypothetical odds of Y being afflicted by some negative outcome. STOP SCAPEGOATING. B. Consider that the 'cases ratio' is tainted because of faulty CDC guidance. If you test more aggressively conditioned on vaccination status, you are going to get biased ratios. At this point anything but sampling studies is pretty much worthless in assessing how prevalent breakthrough infections are. We've got to thank CDC for that. > Five days earlier, I had gone to a house party in Montgomery County. There were 15 adults there, all of us fully vaccinated. The next day, our host started to feel sick. The day after that, she tested positive for COVID-19. [...] At this point, 11 of the 15 have tested positive for COVID." If the vaccines reduce breakthrough infections at 1 : 7 rate, an outbreak incident where 11 : 15 get infected has a probability of about 1 : 1,000,000,000. Rather unlikely, perhaps something else is at play: > The official Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guideline stated that, since I was fully vaccinated, I didn’t need to do anything different unless I started developing symptoms. I’m an epidemiologist at a major medical research university, which has a dedicated COVID exposure hotline for staff. I called it, and workers said I didn’t need to do anything. > The CDC announced in May that it was only going to collect data on breakthrough infections that led to hospitalization or death, which are fortunately rare. But that means that outbreaks like ours will fly under the radar. https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/op-ed/bs-ed-op-0804-breakthrough-covid-20210803-t32trfpiwzdf5okfar45f64whi-story.html https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/op-ed/bs-ed-op-0804-bre... Edit: Especially if the ratios do not match ratios calculated in other countries where delta case reduction is around 1 : 2. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1016465/Vaccine_surveillance_report_-_week_36.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
      - jameshart 5y ago
        > I reject on principle the reasoning that X must undergo unnecessary medical procedure to lower hypothetical odds of Y being afflicted by some negative outcome. It sounds like you reject the entire concept of public health. That is going to be a bit of a problem when you are engaging in a debate about public health policy.
- AuryGlenz 5y ago
  I don’t buy the “unvaccinated as a reservoir for mutation” line of thinking. For one, there are many, many countries with a low vaccination rate and it’s going to be like that for a long time. Also, I haven’t see data on what the R0 is from vaccinated person to vaccinated person with Delta. If it’s above 1 then all we’re doing is creating immense selective pressure for vaccine escape.
  - christophilus 5y ago
    The latter seems likely to me. I don’t understand how anyone thinks the blame for mutations lies solely or even mostly with the unvaccinated. Vaccines, distributed in a pandemic, are likely to cause immense selective pressure, and that is one of the reasons that the WHO originally planned on non-vaccine herd immunity when they wrote their respiratory pandemic game-plan prior to 2020. I’m fully vaccinated, not anti-vax, and not an expert. This is just my understanding based on what I’ve read.
  - nsxwolf 5y ago
    Has there ever been a vaccination program that was so successful, so fast, that we reached nearly 100% vaccination in less than what, a year or so? Why wouldn't every other virus simply mutate in these "reservoirs" and make vaccines a failed idea?
    - apendleton 5y ago
      Not all viruses are created equal; some are much more prone to mutation than others. And indeed, vaccines for highly mutation-prone ones do "fail" in some sense -- that's why we need flu shots every year but one or two doses of the chickenpox vaccine are preventative for a lifetime: the flu is an RNA virus and also has a mechanism for swapping genes between different strains infecting an individual organism (including animals), so it changes a lot, and vaccines only last until the in-the-wild flu changes out from under them, whereas chickenpox/varicella is a DNA virus that's much more genetically stable.
      - CrazyPyroLinux 5y ago
- rdtsc 5y ago
  > To the extent that kids are running around with infections, they’re transmitting virus to others and providing a reservoir for mutation Can make the same argument for the vaccinated people. Vaccines don’t prevent infection, they reduce symptoms. So by same logic they run around with the infection spreading it to everyone.
  - apendleton 5y ago
    Vaccines don't 100% prevent infections, but there's strong evidence that they both significantly reduce the rate at which people become infected and, should they become infected, the rate at which they can retransmit the virus to others, and we have no reason to believe they wouldn't do the same in children. It's not an all-or-nothing affair.
- swader999 5y ago
  Its clearly been established that transmission is happening in vaccinated people. If the R Naught is more than 1 then you don't get any benefit to vaccinating a population that isn't vulnerable. Only the vulnerable should be vaccinated for a virus that shifts rapidly like most respiratory virus do. Here's the thing - if you are vaccinated and benefiting from less severe infection, you'll be out and about socially and transmitting this. It may be so mild that it would be hard to contact trace and know when to isolate. You may even have a more severe (deadly) variant that your just boosted system doesn't have a problem with. Whereas a naive population would be more prone to be bed-ridden, isolated and not transmitting this more harmful variant. Then when your immunity wanes from the recent shot (5 months it seems per Israel's experience) this more harmful variant may in fact hurt the vaccinated population if they don't get the next booster in time and the booster isn't formulated for this variant.
  - apendleton 5y ago
    > If the R Naught is more than 1 then you don't get any benefit to vaccinating a population that isn't vulnerable. That's not how R values work at all. Firstly, an R value of 1.5 and an R value of 5 have wildly different outcomes in terms of controlling spread, and vaccines that can reduce R values can reduce spread even if the R value remains above 1. More to the point, though, "transmission is happening in vaccinated people" doesn't imply that the R value is above 1, and it doesn't look like you've provided any evidence that that's the case, nor does the fact that infections sometimes occur, in and of itself, suggest it.
    - swader999 5y ago
      Look at Gibraltar's daily spike well after they acheived 99% full vaccination status on June 1. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/gibraltar/#graph-cases-daily https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/gibraltar/... Only lockdowns brought it back down which creates other problems around immune health in the population. (see NZ for example, RSV is clogging up the hospitals now with young kids who had degraded their immune systems the last year or so with all the hardcore lockdowns there)
- cblconfederate 5y ago
  > It’s the cheapest way out of this thing. I think we should be wary of those "easy way outs", because nothing seems to indicate that vaccines are a panacea. They are of course the best that us adults can do right now to protect ourselves, but if restrictions get too relaxed simultaneously, then we ve just created pressure on the virus to create a variant that will escape completely. This is a marathon and we are not yet done. a combination of vaccines with distancing will be required for a long time. Humans are adaptible, the earlier we start the better. (Also, we shouldn't argue in absolutes, it s not going to fix anything)
- _-david-_ 5y ago
  Some children are at greater risk from the vaccine than covid so it seems reckless to just push vaccines. You will quite possibility kill more kids by pushing the vaccine on them. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/10/boys-more-at-risk-from-pfizer-jab-side-effect-than-covid-suggests-study https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/10/boys-more-at-r...

by ttul 5y ago

ttul 5y ago

Pushed reply too soon. Children are at low risk, but not no risk. To the extent that kids are running around with infections, they’re transmitting virus to others and providing a reservoir for mutation. That is not productive. Let’s get the kids vaccinated. It’s the cheapest way out of this thing.

angelzen 5y ago
> providing a reservoir for mutation. That is FUD and you should be ashamed of yourself. I have listened to scared people trying to blame people that are not vaccinated for the fact that vaccines are not that effective at preventing infection and that mild breakthrough infections are common. Most of it done with rather troubling political undertones. Such is life in US 2021. I don't like it, but I'll not engage directly. Hopefully the FUD will pass. But obviously the largest percentage of unvaccinated people are children, which do not NEED the vaccine, at least according to the data we have so far. I will not tolerate scapegoating of kids. Please get a grip.
- xxpor 5y ago
  >I have listened to scared people trying to blame people that are not vaccinated for the fact that vaccines are not that effective at preventing infection and that mild breakthrough infections are common. Completely ridiculous. https://kingcounty.gov/depts/health/covid-19/data/vaccination-outcomes.aspx https://kingcounty.gov/depts/health/covid-19/data/vaccinatio... They're not perfect, but arguing they're not that effective is just stupid.
  - angelzen 5y ago
    A. I reject on principle the reasoning that X must undergo unnecessary medical procedure to lower hypothetical odds of Y being afflicted by some negative outcome. STOP SCAPEGOATING. B. Consider that the 'cases ratio' is tainted because of faulty CDC guidance. If you test more aggressively conditioned on vaccination status, you are going to get biased ratios. At this point anything but sampling studies is pretty much worthless in assessing how prevalent breakthrough infections are. We've got to thank CDC for that. > Five days earlier, I had gone to a house party in Montgomery County. There were 15 adults there, all of us fully vaccinated. The next day, our host started to feel sick. The day after that, she tested positive for COVID-19. [...] At this point, 11 of the 15 have tested positive for COVID." If the vaccines reduce breakthrough infections at 1 : 7 rate, an outbreak incident where 11 : 15 get infected has a probability of about 1 : 1,000,000,000. Rather unlikely, perhaps something else is at play: > The official Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guideline stated that, since I was fully vaccinated, I didn’t need to do anything different unless I started developing symptoms. I’m an epidemiologist at a major medical research university, which has a dedicated COVID exposure hotline for staff. I called it, and workers said I didn’t need to do anything. > The CDC announced in May that it was only going to collect data on breakthrough infections that led to hospitalization or death, which are fortunately rare. But that means that outbreaks like ours will fly under the radar. https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/op-ed/bs-ed-op-0804-breakthrough-covid-20210803-t32trfpiwzdf5okfar45f64whi-story.html https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/op-ed/bs-ed-op-0804-bre... Edit: Especially if the ratios do not match ratios calculated in other countries where delta case reduction is around 1 : 2. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1016465/Vaccine_surveillance_report_-_week_36.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
    - jameshart 5y ago
      > I reject on principle the reasoning that X must undergo unnecessary medical procedure to lower hypothetical odds of Y being afflicted by some negative outcome. It sounds like you reject the entire concept of public health. That is going to be a bit of a problem when you are engaging in a debate about public health policy.
AuryGlenz 5y ago
I don’t buy the “unvaccinated as a reservoir for mutation” line of thinking. For one, there are many, many countries with a low vaccination rate and it’s going to be like that for a long time. Also, I haven’t see data on what the R0 is from vaccinated person to vaccinated person with Delta. If it’s above 1 then all we’re doing is creating immense selective pressure for vaccine escape.
- christophilus 5y ago
  The latter seems likely to me. I don’t understand how anyone thinks the blame for mutations lies solely or even mostly with the unvaccinated. Vaccines, distributed in a pandemic, are likely to cause immense selective pressure, and that is one of the reasons that the WHO originally planned on non-vaccine herd immunity when they wrote their respiratory pandemic game-plan prior to 2020. I’m fully vaccinated, not anti-vax, and not an expert. This is just my understanding based on what I’ve read.
- nsxwolf 5y ago
  Has there ever been a vaccination program that was so successful, so fast, that we reached nearly 100% vaccination in less than what, a year or so? Why wouldn't every other virus simply mutate in these "reservoirs" and make vaccines a failed idea?
  - apendleton 5y ago
    Not all viruses are created equal; some are much more prone to mutation than others. And indeed, vaccines for highly mutation-prone ones do "fail" in some sense -- that's why we need flu shots every year but one or two doses of the chickenpox vaccine are preventative for a lifetime: the flu is an RNA virus and also has a mechanism for swapping genes between different strains infecting an individual organism (including animals), so it changes a lot, and vaccines only last until the in-the-wild flu changes out from under them, whereas chickenpox/varicella is a DNA virus that's much more genetically stable.
    - CrazyPyroLinux 5y ago
rdtsc 5y ago
> To the extent that kids are running around with infections, they’re transmitting virus to others and providing a reservoir for mutation Can make the same argument for the vaccinated people. Vaccines don’t prevent infection, they reduce symptoms. So by same logic they run around with the infection spreading it to everyone.
- apendleton 5y ago
  Vaccines don't 100% prevent infections, but there's strong evidence that they both significantly reduce the rate at which people become infected and, should they become infected, the rate at which they can retransmit the virus to others, and we have no reason to believe they wouldn't do the same in children. It's not an all-or-nothing affair.
swader999 5y ago
Its clearly been established that transmission is happening in vaccinated people. If the R Naught is more than 1 then you don't get any benefit to vaccinating a population that isn't vulnerable. Only the vulnerable should be vaccinated for a virus that shifts rapidly like most respiratory virus do. Here's the thing - if you are vaccinated and benefiting from less severe infection, you'll be out and about socially and transmitting this. It may be so mild that it would be hard to contact trace and know when to isolate. You may even have a more severe (deadly) variant that your just boosted system doesn't have a problem with. Whereas a naive population would be more prone to be bed-ridden, isolated and not transmitting this more harmful variant. Then when your immunity wanes from the recent shot (5 months it seems per Israel's experience) this more harmful variant may in fact hurt the vaccinated population if they don't get the next booster in time and the booster isn't formulated for this variant.
- apendleton 5y ago
  > If the R Naught is more than 1 then you don't get any benefit to vaccinating a population that isn't vulnerable. That's not how R values work at all. Firstly, an R value of 1.5 and an R value of 5 have wildly different outcomes in terms of controlling spread, and vaccines that can reduce R values can reduce spread even if the R value remains above 1. More to the point, though, "transmission is happening in vaccinated people" doesn't imply that the R value is above 1, and it doesn't look like you've provided any evidence that that's the case, nor does the fact that infections sometimes occur, in and of itself, suggest it.
  - swader999 5y ago
    Look at Gibraltar's daily spike well after they acheived 99% full vaccination status on June 1. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/gibraltar/#graph-cases-daily https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/gibraltar/... Only lockdowns brought it back down which creates other problems around immune health in the population. (see NZ for example, RSV is clogging up the hospitals now with young kids who had degraded their immune systems the last year or so with all the hardcore lockdowns there)
cblconfederate 5y ago
> It’s the cheapest way out of this thing. I think we should be wary of those "easy way outs", because nothing seems to indicate that vaccines are a panacea. They are of course the best that us adults can do right now to protect ourselves, but if restrictions get too relaxed simultaneously, then we ve just created pressure on the virus to create a variant that will escape completely. This is a marathon and we are not yet done. a combination of vaccines with distancing will be required for a long time. Humans are adaptible, the earlier we start the better. (Also, we shouldn't argue in absolutes, it s not going to fix anything)
_-david-_ 5y ago
Some children are at greater risk from the vaccine than covid so it seems reckless to just push vaccines. You will quite possibility kill more kids by pushing the vaccine on them. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/10/boys-more-at-risk-from-pfizer-jab-side-effect-than-covid-suggests-study https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/10/boys-more-at-r...