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> For the past two years, Americans have accepted more harm to children in exchange for less harm to adults. At first we didn't know how much harm the virus wo
by animal_spirits 5y ago
> For the past two years, Americans have accepted more harm to children in exchange for less harm to adults.
At first we didn't know how much harm the virus would cause to children. But now that we see it is much less dangerous for them we shouldn't be preventing them from learning because we are afraid of getting sick. The children are the future, and in order to secure a positive growth in society it is our obligation to give them their very important education.
- FiReaNG3L 5y agoCounterpoint: at first it was extremely obvious that this virus was affecting you harder the older you are, with 60+ populations starting to be at risk. Nobody thought it was harming children.
- woodruffw 5y agoThe reasoning here is flawed: we had early positive evidence that COVID-19 was particularly dangerous for the elderly and those with a variety of medical preconditions. We didn't have positive or negative evidence that children weren't an at-risk group (for any number of reasons: lack of case evidence, the fact that children can't be modeled medically as adults, etc.). Instead, we applied the lessons of the common flu[1]: children do get more sick from the common flu than young and middle-aged adults and so, in light of a novel severe respiratory disease, it doesn't make sense to take chances. [1]: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/keyfacts.htm https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/keyfacts.htm
- aantix 5y ago>We didn't have positive or negative evidence that children weren't an at-risk group Why aren't the low death rates for the 0-17 cohort enough?
- woodruffw 5y agoBecause, again, children's health is not accurately reflected in adult models. "Kills adults" can be correspond to almost anything in children, and telling people to bet their children's health on an unknown respiratory disease isn't good politics or good public health policy.
- r00fus 5y agoIt's a blood/brain pathogen that is infectious via respiratory means. A lot of the "varied issues" that long-COVID sufferers deal with are more easily explained by the disruption of the circulatory system (esp. as it affects the brain - when the body's defenses kill COVID-infected brain cells en-masse that results in the "brain fog").
- DennisP 5y agoBecause people are experiencing long-term effects besides death.
- lotsofpulp 5y agoHow good is this data? How does it compare to long term effects of other common viral infections?
- throwawayboise 5y agoBut how many, and is it more than other respiratory illness?
- nsainsbury 5y agoActually, a recent meta-analysis found that when you actually add a control group, most of the "long COVID" symptoms disappear. Higher quality studies were was associated with lower prevalence of almost all symptoms. "Long COVID" appears to be almost entirely an artifact of bad science (and bad science reporting) See https://twitter.com/ShamezLadhani/status/1472622893154639876 https://twitter.com/ShamezLadhani/status/1472622893154639876 and https://www.journalofinfection.com/article/S0163-4453(21)00555-7/fulltext https://www.journalofinfection.com/article/S0163-4453(21)005...
- DennisP 5y agoGlad to see that. Appears to be just for children, do you know of similar studies on adults?
- civilized 5y agoNo. As the article explains, this uncertainty might explain at most a couple months of the initial response. It was very obvious, very early, that the risk to children was low and did not fit the age profile of the flu. Nearly all the debate around closing schools was in regards to their role as general transmission hubs (many argued that kids didn't even transmit COVID enough to worry about) and the risk to teachers. Nobody who was paying attention thought going to school was going to kill lots of kids relative to historically normal levels of child mortality. If you're having a hard time remembering how things actually played out in 2020, just ask yourself: did you hear about pediatric wards filling up with COVID patients? No, you did not. You heard about an extremely rare multisystem inflammatory disorder and that's about it.
- woodruffw 5y agoYou've performed a very subtle conversational pivot here: I didn't assert that COVID is more deadly to children, or that public policy was structured around that hypothesis. I said that we didn't know how dangerous it was and that, among other things, treating COVID as potentially flu-like in young children was a reasonable policy. When it became clear that children weren't dying in large numbers from COVID, keeping them out of school throughout 2020 because of the transmission theory was (and may still be, depending on other circumstances) sufficient justification.
- civilized 5y agoI did not pivot. And to anyone reading my post, it should be so obvious that I did not pivot that your claim that I did verges on flatly dishonest. We knew COVID was not dangerous to children by early summer 2020. The article says this and the article is correct. I simply and plainly repeated this. It was never the case that anyone who was paying attention believed school closures might be the only thing standing between COVID and mass death of children. That did not happen. It did not happen. It never happened. Please dispense with any further nonsense about subtlety. Speak plainly and without subtlety, as I am doing.
- woodruffw 5y ago
- arrosenberg 5y agoCounterpoint: It was extremely obvious that this virus was hitting old folks hard because nursing homes were concentrating them in recirculated air. It wasn't completely obvious that the same thing wouldn't happen in schools. It should be obvious by now, however.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- floren 5y agoFrom the very start children were considered essentially immune to COVID. I remember in 2020, well into the pandemic, that there was huge news coverage the first time a kid ended up hospitalized.
- micromacrofoot 5y agoBefore vaccines the major concern was children as a vector for spreading it (especially because they were more often asymptomatic), anyone with school age kids know how quickly they spread illness. There was some secondary concern of long-term side-effects ("long covid") cases in children as well, and I recall some talk of MIS-C and Kawasaki disease... but even early on those seemed fairly rare.
- stathibus 5y agoHuman nature. Harm through inaction is more palatable than risky action.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- ajmurmann 5y agoThis cannot be mentioned enough. It's such a weird bias. Just repeated again with the bizarre delay of the critical Pfizer medication that statement was unethical to not give to the control group but ok to delay approval for months.
- Alex3917 5y ago> The children are the future, and in order to secure a positive growth in society it is our obligation to give them their very important education. Great, so just set up a fund to compensate teachers and daycare workers who get long covid in order to pay their salary and medical expenses for the rest of their lives if they're unable to work.
- animal_spirits 5y agoOur taxation system is already set up for these kinds of transactions, and we definitely should be putting more money into teacher salaries and education.
- datavirtue 5y agoNo we should not. They all get a pension. Do you know how much pensions cost? There are people on waiting lists to fill teacher positions. The benefits make up for the low bank deposit.
- animal_spirits 5y agoMaybe it is time we start to rethink the benefits then? If it is not financially viable then its time for something new. Maybe the government could take after how the private sector pays
- nsxwolf 5y agoPeople don't get this. In Illinois, multiple thousands of my annual property tax dollars directly fund the pensions of local teachers. And then I have to self-fund my 401K to have a chance at retirement - one that could fail to grow or evaporate in the market at exactly the wrong time. Theirs is guaranteed. They will get their salary for life.
- ModernMech 5y agoMy district is short on teachers. Here, it takes 10 years of service to vest into a pension, and most teachers burn out way before then. I’d love to see an example of the waiting list you’re talking about. Maybe my district can advertise there to find help.
- wayoutthere 5y agoThe problem isn’t the kids getting sick, it’s the adults teaching them getting sick and dying. We’ve treated teachers like shit for so long that many are just saying “nope, not dying for a job” because they can go make more money doing literally anything else. We were scraping the bottom of the barrel even before Covid. If kids education were really a priority, the right time to invest was 20 years ago. The system has been broken for a long time already.
- animal_spirits 5y ago> the right time to invest was 20 years ago The second best time to plant a tree is today
- wayoutthere 5y agoIt’s probably too late, this country is about to fracture. All the indicators point to a coup coming in the next few years which will launch us into an unknown realm of violence. We’re way deep into “the cool zone” now.
- animal_spirits 5y agoI highly disagree. It is never too late. I will continue to roll up my sleeves and work for change and I hope you join me.
- wayoutthere 5y agoAs a member of a marginalized community, I don’t have that luxury. Hope for the best, plan for the worst. I’m doing my part in my own way.
- animal_spirits 5y agoBest of luck to you on your journey, friend
- 5y ago
- cm2187 5y agoChinese deaths stats by age were available from March 2020. It is just the media decided to ignore them.
- downWidOutaFite 5y agoWe've all heard about the children numbers, no one is ignoring anything. I find it offensive to use "the media" when describing other's positions in a debate. You're basically saying your opponents are brainwashed by evil media while you are completely objective. And ignoring all the media that you consume that backs up your position.
- sanedigital 5y agoChinese stats about anything should be taken with a healthy dose of salt. According to them, zero people have died since April 2020.
- quadrifoliate 5y ago"Children are our future and you should be prepared to accept arbitrary Covid consequences for them" might be a compelling argument on an orange web site, but it is not going to be one when you present it to over-worked, under-appreciated teachers who have families of their own and their futures to worry about. Bringing back pensions and providing free post-retirement healthcare for teachers and their families will back up grandiose statements like yours with actions. With the current right-wing thinking in vogue in the US, I suspect there is vanishingly little chance of that happening.
- Apocryphon 5y agoHell, increase their current healthcare benefits if they're to teach during this crisis.
- joppy 5y agoHaving dead or sick parents and teachers is also a terrible outcome for children.
- cortesoft 5y agoHow are we so sure that the declines these years won't be easily made back up after they return to normal schooling in the coming years? Also, are these test results really indicative of important value that the kids aren't getting?