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That's a very poor answer since giving any medicine to a child with risks exceeding the benefits so that someone else could benefit would violate the Hippocrati

That's a very poor answer since giving any medicine to a child with risks exceeding the benefits so that someone else could benefit would violate the Hippocratic Oath. Also, there aren't plenty of vaccines leftover worldwide. Vaccines would be going to poorer countries that have low vaccination rates if those vaccines weren't being used for children.

jacobolus 5y ago
The risk to 5–11 year olds of the mRNA Covid vaccines is ~0, orders of magnitude lower than the (still very low compared to older adults) risk of Covid. These are incredibly safe vaccines. Out of ~9 million vaccinations, there have been ~100 "serious" adverse effects reported, most of those fever or vomiting but also e.g. 5 experiencing new-onset seizures and 11 with (recovered or recovering) myocarditis. 2 girls (5 and 6) with "complicated medical histories" in "fragile health" died after vaccination, and their deaths are being investigated but are not believed to be caused by the vaccine https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm705152a1.htm?s_cid=mm705152a1_w https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm705152a1.htm?s_cid=... Among 12–17 year olds, the vaccines result in on the order 200x reduction in hospitalization. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm705152a3.htm?s_cid=mm705152a3_w https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm705152a3.htm?s_cid=...
- cudgy 5y ago
  How many kids have been exposed to covid? Almost all over the last 2 years with virtually no deaths. How many kids have received the vaccine? Very few over the last month with some reported complications like myocarditis for example. Vaccines do not prevent transmission, so what benefit is there for children (and their families) getting this vaccine when the risk of the disease is virtually zero?
  - jacobolus 5y ago
    Hundreds of children have died of Covid in the USA out of tens of millions infected. This is obviously much lower than the risk to the unvaccinated elderly (like 3+ orders of magnitude lower), but every dead child is still a tragedy. A larger number of children (still relatively low compared to adults) experience chronic post-viral sequelae significantly harming their quality of life. Covid is among the riskiest diseases faced this year by young children in developed countries. As I mentioned (see linked CDC document), as far as we can tell zero children 5–11 have died from the vaccine out of ~9 million vaccinated. There were 11 cases of myocarditis, all recovered or recovering. As far as anyone can tell the vaccine has caused no long-term harm to any young child. This is a truly remarkable safety record, better than many vaccines we mandate for all children for diseases less dangerous than Covid. Vaccines do partially prevent transmission, both for a vaccinated index infected person (viral load goes down faster and course of infection is shortened) and when their contacts are vaccinated (reduces likelihood of being infected at all). But it’s not perfect, especially with the omicron variant which partially evades antibodies (but does not evade T cell immunity). > what benefit is there for children (and their families) The benefits are: (a) There is some protection against initial infection (very effective with the original and alpha/beta variants, very effective after a booster for delta, only partially effective for omicron; perhaps in the future there will be a variant-agnostic booster), which should get still more effective after a mild Covid infection. Eventually almost every person on the planet will be vaccinated and/or infected multiple times by Covid, and this population immunity is the only way out of the pandemic. (b) Vaccination decreases risk of hospitalization and death vs. current Covid variants across all age groups including children by 2+ orders of magnitude. The adaptive immune system is extremely effective but it takes a while to learn to recognize new pathogens, making diseases much more dangerous to the immunologically naïve. Vaccines induce this learning up-front without the need for an accompanying high-risk infection. (c) The omicron variant is putting more children in hospitals than previous variants, and an even more risky-to-children variant might become dominant in the future. T cell immunity induced by vaccines should continue to offer strong protection vs. future variants, because there is limited evolutionary pressure on the virus to evade it (whereas there is significant evolutionary pressure to evade antibodies). (d) Children eventually grow up, and Covid is going to be circulating forever. An immunologically naïve person who encounters it at some later time (maybe decades in the future) is going to be hit much harder. An immunization for everyone now is a great insurance policy for the future.
    - cudgy 5y ago
      - jacobolus 5y ago
        > more unknowns regarding the vaccine than covid itself This is categorically false. Whatever sources you are getting your information about vaccines from is lying to you, and probably also lying to you about a wide variety of other topics.
        cudgy 5y ago
        Again you ignore critical points and dismiss the nebulous nature of the data that you believe to be “categorically” true. Time to move on.
        jacobolus 5y ago
        There are no “critical points”. These vaccines have caused a vanishingly small number of "serious" (i.e. serious enough that doctors need to observe carefully) adverse effects, mostly vomiting/fever, and from what I can tell all of those resolved after a short time. There is zero evidence I can see of any long-term side effects, certainly not in significant numbers. By contrast Covid has killed hundreds of American children and caused life-altering chronic effects for thousands more, and we still don’t know what proportion of those will resolve or when. The same goes for older people (who receive a higher dose). The number of serious adverse reactions is vanishingly small, almost all of those are temporary, and the vaccine is several orders of magnitude safer than Covid. (Among older people the vaccine may have caused a few deaths, out of hundreds of millions of people vaccinated; by comparison those vaccinations have saved millions of lives and prevented millions of debilitating chronic illnesses.) If you read expert immunologists, virologists, infectious disease epidemiologists, public health experts, Covid-treating physicians, etc., they are essentially unanimous in strongly advocating everyone get vaccinated. Folks claiming these vaccines might be unsafe for children are either (a) ignorant/deluded, or (b) lying.
tragictrash 5y ago
This post is 100% wrong. Benefits outweigh the risks, and vaccine acceptance is a very big problem even in countries like south Africa. I know its hard for some people, but we can't learn the info for you. Please be an adult when you use freedom of speech. These things you do have a real impact when you yell them into the echo chamber called facebook.
- ErikVandeWater 5y ago

jacobolus 5y ago

The risk to 5–11 year olds of the mRNA Covid vaccines is ~0, orders of magnitude lower than the (still very low compared to older adults) risk of Covid. These are incredibly safe vaccines. Out of ~9 million vaccinations, there have been ~100 "serious" adverse effects reported, most of those fever or vomiting but also e.g. 5 experiencing new-onset seizures and 11 with (recovered or recovering) myocarditis. 2 girls (5 and 6) with "complicated medical histories" in "fragile health" died after vaccination, and their deaths are being investigated but are not believed to be caused by the vaccine https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm705152a1.htm?s_cid=mm705152a1_w https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm705152a1.htm?s_cid=... Among 12–17 year olds, the vaccines result in on the order 200x reduction in hospitalization. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm705152a3.htm?s_cid=mm705152a3_w https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm705152a3.htm?s_cid=...

cudgy 5y ago
How many kids have been exposed to covid? Almost all over the last 2 years with virtually no deaths. How many kids have received the vaccine? Very few over the last month with some reported complications like myocarditis for example. Vaccines do not prevent transmission, so what benefit is there for children (and their families) getting this vaccine when the risk of the disease is virtually zero?
- jacobolus 5y ago
  Hundreds of children have died of Covid in the USA out of tens of millions infected. This is obviously much lower than the risk to the unvaccinated elderly (like 3+ orders of magnitude lower), but every dead child is still a tragedy. A larger number of children (still relatively low compared to adults) experience chronic post-viral sequelae significantly harming their quality of life. Covid is among the riskiest diseases faced this year by young children in developed countries. As I mentioned (see linked CDC document), as far as we can tell zero children 5–11 have died from the vaccine out of ~9 million vaccinated. There were 11 cases of myocarditis, all recovered or recovering. As far as anyone can tell the vaccine has caused no long-term harm to any young child. This is a truly remarkable safety record, better than many vaccines we mandate for all children for diseases less dangerous than Covid. Vaccines do partially prevent transmission, both for a vaccinated index infected person (viral load goes down faster and course of infection is shortened) and when their contacts are vaccinated (reduces likelihood of being infected at all). But it’s not perfect, especially with the omicron variant which partially evades antibodies (but does not evade T cell immunity). > what benefit is there for children (and their families) The benefits are: (a) There is some protection against initial infection (very effective with the original and alpha/beta variants, very effective after a booster for delta, only partially effective for omicron; perhaps in the future there will be a variant-agnostic booster), which should get still more effective after a mild Covid infection. Eventually almost every person on the planet will be vaccinated and/or infected multiple times by Covid, and this population immunity is the only way out of the pandemic. (b) Vaccination decreases risk of hospitalization and death vs. current Covid variants across all age groups including children by 2+ orders of magnitude. The adaptive immune system is extremely effective but it takes a while to learn to recognize new pathogens, making diseases much more dangerous to the immunologically naïve. Vaccines induce this learning up-front without the need for an accompanying high-risk infection. (c) The omicron variant is putting more children in hospitals than previous variants, and an even more risky-to-children variant might become dominant in the future. T cell immunity induced by vaccines should continue to offer strong protection vs. future variants, because there is limited evolutionary pressure on the virus to evade it (whereas there is significant evolutionary pressure to evade antibodies). (d) Children eventually grow up, and Covid is going to be circulating forever. An immunologically naïve person who encounters it at some later time (maybe decades in the future) is going to be hit much harder. An immunization for everyone now is a great insurance policy for the future.
  - cudgy 5y ago
    - jacobolus 5y ago
      > more unknowns regarding the vaccine than covid itself This is categorically false. Whatever sources you are getting your information about vaccines from is lying to you, and probably also lying to you about a wide variety of other topics.
      - cudgy 5y ago
        Again you ignore critical points and dismiss the nebulous nature of the data that you believe to be “categorically” true. Time to move on.
        jacobolus 5y ago
        There are no “critical points”. These vaccines have caused a vanishingly small number of "serious" (i.e. serious enough that doctors need to observe carefully) adverse effects, mostly vomiting/fever, and from what I can tell all of those resolved after a short time. There is zero evidence I can see of any long-term side effects, certainly not in significant numbers. By contrast Covid has killed hundreds of American children and caused life-altering chronic effects for thousands more, and we still don’t know what proportion of those will resolve or when. The same goes for older people (who receive a higher dose). The number of serious adverse reactions is vanishingly small, almost all of those are temporary, and the vaccine is several orders of magnitude safer than Covid. (Among older people the vaccine may have caused a few deaths, out of hundreds of millions of people vaccinated; by comparison those vaccinations have saved millions of lives and prevented millions of debilitating chronic illnesses.) If you read expert immunologists, virologists, infectious disease epidemiologists, public health experts, Covid-treating physicians, etc., they are essentially unanimous in strongly advocating everyone get vaccinated. Folks claiming these vaccines might be unsafe for children are either (a) ignorant/deluded, or (b) lying.

tragictrash 5y ago

This post is 100% wrong. Benefits outweigh the risks, and vaccine acceptance is a very big problem even in countries like south Africa. I know its hard for some people, but we can't learn the info for you. Please be an adult when you use freedom of speech. These things you do have a real impact when you yell them into the echo chamber called facebook.

ErikVandeWater 5y ago