Coronavirus in the United States - news and thoughts

Don't let facts get in the way of his rant. There have been large studies done showing that teachers aren't at extra risk of teaching in person. This poster ignores that data and throws out a bunch of what/if's and then cites variants. It's quite comical. All the data of kids being hospitalized for covid should be re-examined. I thought the one metric we could believe was hospitalizations. Now that is in question.

 

No, I don't take medical advice from an Economics Professor. Even if he is employed at Stanford Medical. I wouldn't take medical advice from a lawyer that represents Stanford Medical either.

As for the other link, at least 3 out of the 4 are medical professionals on the blog. Their argument is, for younger kids, the rewards aren't worth the risk, because of the 45-year old incident of the H1N1 vaccine that caused a few Guillain-Barré syndrome cases. They argue another incident like this and the public's confidence in vaccines will wane even further. Worthy of consideration, but I would counter 45 years of further research since 1975 have meant vaccines are considerably safer today.

We also have to consider what's best for all of us. And from this link:

That means health authorities can’t be confident of securing community protection against the virus, known as herd immunity, until later this year at the earliest, because children under 18 make up a significant proportion of many countries’ populations.

"We definitely need to get kids vaccinated if we want to be as close to normal as we can," said Octavio Ramilo, chief of infectious diseases at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, in Ohio.​

Again, we are in a race of vaccine versus variants. And as the virus spreads, more variants are possible. From the Journal of American Medicine:

"The virus is telling us it’s going to throw out a lot of mutations," infectious disease specialist Jesse Goodman, MD, MPH, who, as then-chief scientist at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), led the agency’s response to the H1N1 influenza A pandemic, said in an interview. "Even if we don’t have a critical situation right at the moment…there’s a realistic possibility that variants will continue to evolve that have potential to avoid vaccine immunity."

One reason SARS-CoV-2 is throwing out variants and will continue to do so is because relatively few people globally have been vaccinated, Norman Baylor, PhD, a former director of the FDA’s Office of Vaccines Research and Review, noted in an interview. "This virus is like, ‘Yep, I’ve got plenty of people I can infect, and the more I replicate, the more I can mutate,’" Baylor said.
​

The way to slow down variants is to vaccinate people so the virus doesn't have, "plenty of people" to infect any more. We need to do this before there is a variant that is vaccine resistant, or one that is as dangerous to kids as it is to adults. May be too late for the latter considering what is currently happening in Brazil.

 

This Lancet article states we aren't vaccinating fast enough. And because of that, the risk of new variants is very high.

We found that the current pace of vaccine rollout is insufficient to prevent the exacerbation of the pandemic that will be attributable to the novel, more contagious SARS-CoV-2 variants. Accelerating the vaccination rate should be a public health priority for averting the expected surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths that would be associated with widespread dissemination of the SGTF variants. Our results underscore the need to bolster the production and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, to rapidly expand vaccination priority groups and distribution sites.
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Again, the biggest risk is a variant that is resistant to the vaccine. Equally disturbing would be a variant that is as dangerous to kids as it is to older adults. The latter variant may already have happened in Brazil. The best way to prevent future variants? Get everyone vaccinated as soon as possible.

 

LOL. I like how you glossed over the amount of children actually hospitalized from Covid has been drastically overstated. Kids are at zero risk almost from covid, but hey, lets stick a needle in them. Brilliant! More what if's from you. Classic.

 

Pretty selective clipping of that article....
From your article:

Yet all you quoted was the part that says: "some" experts think it "may" be more robust, though they are "still figuring out"?

 

Do you work for Phizer?

 

Yep, very selective. Yet no one wants to discuss the massive news that the US has been grossly overstating Covid hospitalizations for children. That's a massive story that i'm sure won't be covered and glossed over. Meanwhile i'm sure we will get more what/if's shortly.

 

My guess is you are about to hear the same thing for the hundredth time.

 

Having asymptomatic, COVID-19 kids in hospitals for reasons other than COVID still possesses a risk to all. The more people with COVID-19, the greater the chance there is for a mutation that causes a far more dangerous variant of the virus. This article explains that UK variant has caused a rise in juvenile cases, and yes, points out that the danger to the kids is small. But we could be seeing a pattern similar to flu spread, which usually hits schools first, then infects adults as kids spread the virus when they go home.

I don't work for Pfizer, or any pharma company. But I understand the basic science around virus transmissions, mutation that causes variants, and herd immunity. And as Dr. Foxman from Yale put it, we're in a race between vaccines and variants. The more people infected with COVID, the greater the chance there is a variant. The closer we get to herd immunity, the smaller the chance of anyone getting infected, and the chance of a variant decreases significantly.

Death is the worst, but not the only negative effect of COVID. Ohio just opened a Children's Clinic for COVID long haulers under the age of 18. More and more kids are being diagnosed as long haulers.

So yes, sticking a kid with another needle is the best alternative. Children in the US already get about 16 vaccines before they turn 18. Another one to protect from COVID and get us closer to herd immunity is the smart, scientific thing to do. Wait too long, and the risk of a variant that can effect children like adults, or worse, is vaccine resistant, and I promise I won't take any pleasure in telling anyone I told you so. There is no pleasure is seeing anyone get sick or dying from a disease that is now preventable by vaccine.

 

More of the same...

What is the difference from the 16 or so vaccines before they turn 18 and the covid vaccine? All 16 are FDA approved and had rigorous testing. If you can't understand the difference than there is no point in continuing this conversation.

BTW, Long Covid isn't a fact.

Long-term symptoms after SARS-CoV-2 infection in school children: population-based cohort with 6-months follow-up. Short Report

"This study suggests a very low prevalence of long COVID in a randomly selected population-based cohort of children followed over 6 months after serological testing. Importantly, seropositive children, all with a history of pauci-symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection, did not report long COVID more frequently than seronegative children."

 

Oh...and that article is from a couple months ago.

 

Told ya.

 

It's been reported that long haulers are about 10% of the population in children. Your link reported 9% in a small sample. Statistically, this isn't that significant. Long COVID is a fact, and even if it only affects 1 in 10 children that get infected, in a high school of 1,500 kids, that's 150. That's not insignificant, especially to the families of a COVID long hauler kid.

And yes, there still a lot we don't know about COVID-19. Likely more we don't know than we do know. But we do know this is an airborne virus that mutates into variants on a very fast pace. And the more people who get infected, the greater the chances of new variants. So far, vaccines have been effective against all variants, but there is no guarantee that the next variant won't be resistant. Our best defense against this possibility? Get everyone vaccinated and significantly lower the number of people who get COVID. Lower the disease rate, lower the possibility of variants.

Meanwhile, while our debate is going on, there are places like India where COVID is running rampant, and new variants are being discovered. And one of the Indian variants, although not anywhere near completely vaccine resistant, is shown to be more resistant to all vaccines. So far, only lab results and not confirmed, but if there is a variant that lowers say Pfizer effectiveness from 95% to 80%, then it means we'll need even more people vaccinated to reach herd immunity.

 

You get vaccinated yet? It's super easy now.

 

Schools being open is a recommendation rather a prediction. Some will agree with that opinion and others won’t.

That there is low risk for people resuming their lives is a judgement call. Different people will have different cutoffs for what is “low”. To my knowledge, the CDC never reported that COVID has a 30% mortality rate.

Meanwhile, one of the criticisms of the declaration that I saw was that it suggested that we should shield the elderly but gave no advice on how to do so. Indeed, in a world where we couldn’t even protect the White House, this seems like a serious technical hurdle.

 

An here I was wondering if I should pull these leaches off and hop in my horse and buggy for the three hour trip into town to see the medicine man!
Thanks for the update.

 

Not at all. Florida closed their nursing homes in early March. I know this because my mom's place shut down early. Also, FL didn't let covid+ patients back into the nursing homes like a lot of the NE did. That was the single worst decision of the the Pandemic. Saying schools should be open back when they did was a great call. They looked at data from all over the world. Most states didn't do that. No, the CDC didn't report a 30% mortality rate, but they and the media sure didn't tell the public that anyone under 50 had about as much of a chance of dying from covid as getting in a car accident. And children? They don't hardly register as a risk of covid their numbers are so small. We already know the covid hospitalizations of children were grossly inflated, and I wouldn't be surprised if the deaths were inflated as well. Schools being open was the right choice. That's really not up for debate unless you are in the teachers union or a truly partisan Dem.

 

Well you admonishing AZ with 'you work for Pfizer?' seemed a bit much coming from someone who won't even get vaccinated. Maybe you should just get vaccinated like millions of your fellow citizens have and do your part to end this pandemic?

 

Are you advocating for natural immunity over vaccine-induced immunity?

 

I have done quite a bit of "my part". I run a business that closely policed 200 people per day to have masks on at every moment. I have written a very strict corporate policy for our organization that has kept our building 100% covid free. In doing so we spent thousands of dollars to increase the safety in our buildings and for our staff and visitors. I wore a mask every day for the past year, and called out friends and loved ones that did not. I encouraged and convinced my parents to get vaccinated and flipped them from MAGA's to mask wearers.

I have done quite a bit. Now will I do more? If you have been reading lately you will know that I am growing less concerned with the more research I do and will likely get the vax soon...

...your guilt trip opinion notwithstanding.