by ycnews on 12/31/21, 1:08 PM with 154 comments
by PragmaticPulp on 12/31/21, 1:25 PM
Kids are in closer contact with each other and their parents than adults are with each other. It’s not even a close comparison. They may not get severe infections as often as adults, but ask any parent and they’ll let you know just how effective kids are at spreading infections.
It also feels deliberately disingenuous to bring up possible vaccine side effects without explaining that those same side effects occur with higher frequency and severity from the infection itself. It’s increasingly looking like exposure to Coronavirus is inevitable, so choosing the lower risk option of being vaccinated is obviously better than risking the worse side effects of the infection itself. Too many people are trying to treat this as a comparison between vaccinated or never being exposed to the virus ever, which is an increasingly unlikely possibility.
by fabian2k on 12/31/21, 1:45 PM
Just reading the appendix, the calculation they do for the dangers of dying by COVID or the vaccine are completely insane. They take the raw VAERS numbers (which are not designed for this purpose and represent deaths happening shortly after vaccinations, but not necessarily connected to it). They then multiply this by 100 to account for VAERS allegedly undercounting deaths. They then assume that only 6% of people dying from COVID died from COVID, everone else allegedly only died with COVID.
And then they claim that PCR tests are highly likely to be false positive, so many people that are tested positive don't actually have COVID. This is just a series of completely outlandish claims, you can arrive at any number you want if you add "corrections factors" of two orders of magnitude with no real justification, especially if you start from bad data to begin with.
by mattlondon on 12/31/21, 1:24 PM
That is not going to make you feel any better if it is your kid who is one of these "negligible" deaths.
If there is anything you can do as a parent to reduce the risk to your kids, of course you are going to do it (especially if it is a no-brainer quick simple low-risk and cheap like a vaccination). Kids get all sorts of vaccinations and injections starting for their first few weeks of life (and even minutes - they get a vitamin K shot immediately after birth in the UK) , why should covid be any different?
by mabbo on 12/31/21, 1:22 PM
It's like saying "Why fight forest fires? Very few people live in the forests." Because the fire will grow and burn down all the cities.
And also: because we can do both. All the elderly people (that are willing to take the safe and effective vaccine) are vaccinated. We have plenty of vaccines leftover. This isn't a matter of picking who gets it and who doesn't.
by _Microft on 12/31/21, 1:25 PM
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221475002...
(I bet you neither would have expected ammonium nitrate explosions getting mentioned in the article!)
by r721 on 12/31/21, 1:19 PM
And again, this study was done long before omicron:
>As of this writing in mid-June 2021
Recent news story:
>The omicron-fueled surge that is sending COVID-19 cases rocketing in the U.S. is putting children in the hospital in record numbers, and experts lament that most of the youngsters are not vaccinated.
https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-health-pande...
by schleck8 on 12/31/21, 1:36 PM
Schools are very likely to become hyperspreaders with how little space there is between kids in class, and because the younger ones (grade 5 to 8) are still immature.
The students catch covid and (we've known this for a year) usually have mild to no symptoms, but they go on to infect their parents. The dark figure is very high.
> A study by the Helmholtz Centre Munich, for example, showed that the number of children with antibodies in their blood was six times higher than the cases reported by the Bavarian State Office for Health and Nutrition. [1]
I'm honestly baffled by how shortsighted the 'if it's not sick, it's not an issue' logic is. This does not work with Covid.
[1] https://www.br.de/nachrichten/wissen/faq-sind-kinder-tatsaec...
by hdjjhhvvhga on 12/31/21, 2:07 PM
by loceng on 12/31/21, 1:16 PM
• Bulk of COVID-19 per capita deaths occur in elderly with high comorbidities.
• Per capita COVID-19 deaths are negligible in children.
• Clinical trials for these inoculations were very short-term.
• Clinical trials did not address long-term effects most relevant to children.
• High post-inoculation deaths reported in VAERS (very short-term)."
by satisfice on 12/31/21, 5:31 PM
I am not qualified to evaluate the claims made here, directly. I am qualified to notice that there are a lot of prominent experts from big universities on TV telling us things that are not in keeping with some of the key claims of this paper.
by igetspam on 12/31/21, 1:41 PM
My level of acceptable risk is not the same as this paper argues it should be but I find the data suspect.
by throwaway55421 on 12/31/21, 1:34 PM
You are going to get it. Everyone is going to get it, probably repeatedly. France has vaccine passports out of the wazoo and 200k cases.
"Reducing the spread" of something implies that the spread is actually reduced at the macro level. It's irrelevant whether a single vaccinated person has a slightly reduced probability of transmitting the disease if _in aggregate_ everyone gets it anyway.
You may as well say that an umbrella helps prevent wet hair. Well yeah, but not in a blizzard. In a blizzard your hair is saturated anyway. No prevention has occurred.
"Vaccinate the world" doesn't solve covid. Vaccinated populations still get and transmit the virus. They're much better off of course because the individuals fight off the virus more effectively and their health systems function better.
But they still bloody get the virus, still provide a reservoir for mutations, etc.
If I had a quid for every totally nonsensical proclamation about "solving covid via xyz" I'd be a billionaire.
by quantified on 12/31/21, 5:32 PM
by gethoht on 1/1/22, 5:52 AM
It's the same answer.
by ErikVandeWater on 12/31/21, 1:18 PM
by implements on 12/31/21, 1:20 PM
by Nemrod67 on 12/31/21, 1:28 PM
Freedom and safety, story of the World
by PopeUrbanX on 12/31/21, 1:37 PM
Please flag this terrible post.