Roll Up Your (Kids') Sleeves
October 29, 2021 12:33 PM Subscribe
The FDA has authorized Pfizer vaccines for kids age 5-11.
Come on, Moderna, get on the stick!
posted by mittens at 12:54 PM on October 29, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by mittens at 12:54 PM on October 29, 2021 [1 favorite]
Come on Canada next!
posted by synecdoche at 12:54 PM on October 29, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by synecdoche at 12:54 PM on October 29, 2021 [4 favorites]
Gonna vax my 5 year old!
Let's fucking gooooooooooooo!
posted by Groundhog Week at 12:56 PM on October 29, 2021 [21 favorites]
Let's fucking gooooooooooooo!
posted by Groundhog Week at 12:56 PM on October 29, 2021 [21 favorites]
The Pfizer data is with Health Canada now (as of about a week), I imagine to be approved very shortly.
posted by bonehead at 1:02 PM on October 29, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by bonehead at 1:02 PM on October 29, 2021 [2 favorites]
Ok, so can we have it now? How about now? Is now good? Like right now? Like this minute?
posted by Toddles at 1:05 PM on October 29, 2021 [9 favorites]
posted by Toddles at 1:05 PM on October 29, 2021 [9 favorites]
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL!
Fave comment so far "So many parents just exhaled so hard it’s going to impact weather patterns." (Kevin M Kruse)
posted by BlueBlueElectricBlue at 1:11 PM on October 29, 2021 [31 favorites]
Fave comment so far "So many parents just exhaled so hard it’s going to impact weather patterns." (Kevin M Kruse)
posted by BlueBlueElectricBlue at 1:11 PM on October 29, 2021 [31 favorites]
Yay!!! I have so many friends with 11 year olds who are so happy right now!
posted by supermedusa at 1:12 PM on October 29, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by supermedusa at 1:12 PM on October 29, 2021 [2 favorites]
I am very excited to get my children vaccinated. I also think that parents who choose to not get their 5-11 year olds vaccinated are making a perfectly reasonable decision, given the low disease risk to most young children and our limited experience with vaccinating them.
I do hope, especially for the benefit of people who are more vulnerable to COVID, that those parents decide in the future to have their children vaccinated, but the best way to encourage that is to respectfully engage with their concerns, even when they might appear irrational.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 1:13 PM on October 29, 2021 [6 favorites]
I do hope, especially for the benefit of people who are more vulnerable to COVID, that those parents decide in the future to have their children vaccinated, but the best way to encourage that is to respectfully engage with their concerns, even when they might appear irrational.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 1:13 PM on October 29, 2021 [6 favorites]
I wish there was like a big vax fair I could take my kindergartener to on Sunday afternoon and reward her by taking her trick or treating.
posted by Catblack at 1:23 PM on October 29, 2021 [19 favorites]
posted by Catblack at 1:23 PM on October 29, 2021 [19 favorites]
The day that even opt-in testing went live at our local public school, over 100 kids got quarantined. There is a problem for the rest of us that it is not 'serious' for most children, and that is their cases are often not known while they are actively spreading the disease. It is not a responsible decision to not vaccinate kids; the vaccine appears to be more effective in children at suppressing the spread of the virus.
The narrative that children are unaffected by this disease, while not entirely inaccurate, is misleading and damaging to wider measures at dealing with this virus.
Mandates work. Call your local school board, even if you don't have a kid in that school. Especially if you live in an area with lower vaccine rates or looser mandates; despite a few exceptions (TX, FL) local school control does exist, and many school districts are waffling on mandates.
posted by furnace.heart at 1:26 PM on October 29, 2021 [67 favorites]
The narrative that children are unaffected by this disease, while not entirely inaccurate, is misleading and damaging to wider measures at dealing with this virus.
Mandates work. Call your local school board, even if you don't have a kid in that school. Especially if you live in an area with lower vaccine rates or looser mandates; despite a few exceptions (TX, FL) local school control does exist, and many school districts are waffling on mandates.
posted by furnace.heart at 1:26 PM on October 29, 2021 [67 favorites]
I am very excited for teachers & school staff & administrators, who will be safer. Also, for any vulnerable people these kids know.
*deep sigh of relief *
posted by wenestvedt at 1:26 PM on October 29, 2021 [12 favorites]
*deep sigh of relief *
posted by wenestvedt at 1:26 PM on October 29, 2021 [12 favorites]
My school board sent out a survey today about how likely I'd be to get my kids vaccinated (certain) and my preferences for how the vaccine is administered (at school during school hours if possible) so it looks like they're getting ready for when it gets approved here in Canada. Hopefully soon so there's one less thing to worry about.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 1:38 PM on October 29, 2021 [8 favorites]
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 1:38 PM on October 29, 2021 [8 favorites]
I lied about my kid's age to get her vaxed two months ago, because she's high-risk. Getting her vaxed was an enormous relief that just kept growing and growing, as it really sank in that she was safe. I'm so glad millions more parents will now get to feel that relief.
And, even though my kid's already vaxed, I'm excited for personal reasons, too. Maybe, early next year, my kid's school will decide the kids can have lockers, again, and her 55-pound frame won't have to lug 17 pounds of backpack. Maybe I can let my kid eat lunch indoors. Maybe I can hang out indoors with friends who have young kids.
Maybe that permanent knot of pandemic stress can ease just a bit more.
posted by gurple at 1:41 PM on October 29, 2021 [13 favorites]
And, even though my kid's already vaxed, I'm excited for personal reasons, too. Maybe, early next year, my kid's school will decide the kids can have lockers, again, and her 55-pound frame won't have to lug 17 pounds of backpack. Maybe I can let my kid eat lunch indoors. Maybe I can hang out indoors with friends who have young kids.
Maybe that permanent knot of pandemic stress can ease just a bit more.
posted by gurple at 1:41 PM on October 29, 2021 [13 favorites]
First, as a broad clarification, we have plenty of experience on safely vaccinating children in general. Second, "If you were playing the numbers and reading the data, you would give your child the vaccine every time." Yes, it's helpful to be compassionate that harm by commission is scarier than harm by omission for people making this decision. But these types of "vaccine is new" arguments weirdly neglect that we have objectively little experience with the long-term effects of even asymptomatic COVID in children, with as much if not more potential for suffering.
posted by BlueBlueElectricBlue at 1:43 PM on October 29, 2021 [48 favorites]
posted by BlueBlueElectricBlue at 1:43 PM on October 29, 2021 [48 favorites]
It’s scheduled an advisory committee meeting to review the pediatric doses next week and is expected to swiftly clear them for public distribution immediately thereafter.
Yeaaaah ... if you could just ... come in to work on Saturday? That'd be greeeat.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 1:50 PM on October 29, 2021 [18 favorites]
Yeaaaah ... if you could just ... come in to work on Saturday? That'd be greeeat.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 1:50 PM on October 29, 2021 [18 favorites]
I'm totally in favor of mandates for adults. (You have the right to not be vaccinated. We have the right to fire you, not let you in our restaurants, etc.) But at this point, it's still emergency use authorization for kids, so mandates would likely be illegal. There were 9 months between FDA EUA for ages 16+ and full authorization.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 1:51 PM on October 29, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 1:51 PM on October 29, 2021 [2 favorites]
Our DC elementary school was just announced as a pop-up vaccination site - very, very ready to get this done.
posted by ryanshepard at 1:57 PM on October 29, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by ryanshepard at 1:57 PM on October 29, 2021 [2 favorites]
There were 9 months between FDA EUA for ages 16+ and full authorization.
The line between emergency authorization and full regular authorization is an arbitrary line that humans have put in place, and can change at will. We make the rules, and we can change them; they are not handed to us from on high.
Humans make the rules, and have failed repeatedly in adapting to new circumstance.
posted by furnace.heart at 2:19 PM on October 29, 2021 [9 favorites]
The line between emergency authorization and full regular authorization is an arbitrary line that humans have put in place, and can change at will. We make the rules, and we can change them; they are not handed to us from on high.
Humans make the rules, and have failed repeatedly in adapting to new circumstance.
posted by furnace.heart at 2:19 PM on October 29, 2021 [9 favorites]
Parents were fine with sweeping school vaccination mandates five decades ago – but COVID-19 may be a different story
This is a pretty informative article about how when mandates were first introduced, it was really only chiropractors who opposed them (that quack practice has been garbage for a long time).
posted by hydropsyche at 2:28 PM on October 29, 2021 [13 favorites]
This is a pretty informative article about how when mandates were first introduced, it was really only chiropractors who opposed them (that quack practice has been garbage for a long time).
posted by hydropsyche at 2:28 PM on October 29, 2021 [13 favorites]
I'm crying - so happy! My 10-year-old nephew is texting me daily - he really wants to come visit me but I live in NYC and it didn't seem like a good idea until he's able to get his shot.
Already planning an amazing weekend for him - we are going to do/buy anything he wants to celebrate!
posted by elvissa at 2:29 PM on October 29, 2021 [13 favorites]
Already planning an amazing weekend for him - we are going to do/buy anything he wants to celebrate!
posted by elvissa at 2:29 PM on October 29, 2021 [13 favorites]
GOOD
posted by Lawn Beaver at 2:44 PM on October 29, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by Lawn Beaver at 2:44 PM on October 29, 2021 [3 favorites]
the best way to encourage that is to respectfully engage with their concerns, even when they might appear irrational.
Fuck that noise. "Concerns" was six months ago. It's neck darts and vaxx gangs now.
posted by The Tensor at 2:57 PM on October 29, 2021 [55 favorites]
Fuck that noise. "Concerns" was six months ago. It's neck darts and vaxx gangs now.
posted by The Tensor at 2:57 PM on October 29, 2021 [55 favorites]
The last reason I'm aware of that was keeping masking and social distancing requirements in place is no longer applicable. I look forward to state governments across the United States relaxing all COVID restrictions immediately.
Vaccines work - COVID has now disappeared into the sort of background risks we tolerate every day. In my locale, for vaccinated people, COVID is now less risky than the flu ever has been - even in the middle of the current surge! For (unvaccinated) people age 0-4, rates of COVID death/hospitalization are basically equal to the flu. So far as I can tell, all metrics are indicating the USA has overcome COVID.
So the restrictions are going to relax, right?
posted by saeculorum at 3:17 PM on October 29, 2021 [3 favorites]
Vaccines work - COVID has now disappeared into the sort of background risks we tolerate every day. In my locale, for vaccinated people, COVID is now less risky than the flu ever has been - even in the middle of the current surge! For (unvaccinated) people age 0-4, rates of COVID death/hospitalization are basically equal to the flu. So far as I can tell, all metrics are indicating the USA has overcome COVID.
So the restrictions are going to relax, right?
posted by saeculorum at 3:17 PM on October 29, 2021 [3 favorites]
My two who are in the 5-12 age range both shouted "YES!" when I told them, and my 5-year-old has asked me a dozen times already WHEN she can get it, how soon, when, mommy, when??? They've been SO PATIENT.
Our school district informed us today that they're in the process of setting up three different clinics (two at a local pharmacy, one at a town building), which means I don't get to live my dream of just having it done at my kids' schools, but it sounds like November 8-19 they're going to be making a huge push to get all the local school kids vaccinated. I'm AMPED. Like ... maybe my kids will be allowed to go to school without masks by January? (Vaccination rates here are quite high, we were the first municipality in the state and I believe in the US to top "90% of eligible people vaccinated.")
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 3:19 PM on October 29, 2021 [15 favorites]
Our school district informed us today that they're in the process of setting up three different clinics (two at a local pharmacy, one at a town building), which means I don't get to live my dream of just having it done at my kids' schools, but it sounds like November 8-19 they're going to be making a huge push to get all the local school kids vaccinated. I'm AMPED. Like ... maybe my kids will be allowed to go to school without masks by January? (Vaccination rates here are quite high, we were the first municipality in the state and I believe in the US to top "90% of eligible people vaccinated.")
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 3:19 PM on October 29, 2021 [15 favorites]
So far as I can tell, all metrics are indicating the USA has overcome COVID.
We live in different versions of "the USA" clearly. In Georgia, we just surpassed 50% vaccinated 3 days ago. Our state portal shows that we're still at greater than 100 cases per 100,000 throughout all of the state that contains people (a few counties have so few inhabitants that the math doesn't work), and our COVID deaths have just finally started dropping from near the all time high level.
I'm delighted that things are going so well where you live. That must be great. Please don't generalize to the rest of us.
posted by hydropsyche at 3:27 PM on October 29, 2021 [43 favorites]
We live in different versions of "the USA" clearly. In Georgia, we just surpassed 50% vaccinated 3 days ago. Our state portal shows that we're still at greater than 100 cases per 100,000 throughout all of the state that contains people (a few counties have so few inhabitants that the math doesn't work), and our COVID deaths have just finally started dropping from near the all time high level.
I'm delighted that things are going so well where you live. That must be great. Please don't generalize to the rest of us.
posted by hydropsyche at 3:27 PM on October 29, 2021 [43 favorites]
In Georgia, [...] our COVID deaths have just finally started dropping from near the all time high level.
Georgia deaths for vaccinated people are at 17.7 per 100,000 people. Previous years have had flu death rates of 3.6-15.8 deaths per 100,000 people. Meanwhile, in Georgia, the death rate from car crashes is 14.2 per 100,000 people.
COVID is not a significant risk to vaccinated people. Any analysis that doesn't distinguish between vaccinated and unvaccinated people in level of risk is absurd - it'd be like arguing that everyone should stop driving because people who don't use seatbelts die at an elevated rate.
posted by saeculorum at 3:38 PM on October 29, 2021 [3 favorites]
Georgia deaths for vaccinated people are at 17.7 per 100,000 people. Previous years have had flu death rates of 3.6-15.8 deaths per 100,000 people. Meanwhile, in Georgia, the death rate from car crashes is 14.2 per 100,000 people.
COVID is not a significant risk to vaccinated people. Any analysis that doesn't distinguish between vaccinated and unvaccinated people in level of risk is absurd - it'd be like arguing that everyone should stop driving because people who don't use seatbelts die at an elevated rate.
posted by saeculorum at 3:38 PM on October 29, 2021 [3 favorites]
So far as I can tell, all metrics are indicating the USA has overcome COVID.
I'm not sure what USA you're talking about. Idaho and Utah are sending their Covid patients to our state for emergency treatment, because their unvaccinated and unmasked are filling their ERs beyond capacity.
There is a problem, however, because we have our own people who have been waiting for cancer and other treatments, because of unvaccinated and unmasked residents here and in those states, who have reduced overall hospital capacity. So we're being forced to triage, even though we have had sensible public health policies in place since the lockdown.
So the restrictions are going to relax, right?
Perhaps once extremists and disinformation nodes stop fighting vaccines and masks, and we can get the pandemic under control, we can start looking at lifting restrictions overall. It's tough, though, when there's so much disinformation being spread like bullshit across the country.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 3:39 PM on October 29, 2021 [32 favorites]
I'm not sure what USA you're talking about. Idaho and Utah are sending their Covid patients to our state for emergency treatment, because their unvaccinated and unmasked are filling their ERs beyond capacity.
There is a problem, however, because we have our own people who have been waiting for cancer and other treatments, because of unvaccinated and unmasked residents here and in those states, who have reduced overall hospital capacity. So we're being forced to triage, even though we have had sensible public health policies in place since the lockdown.
So the restrictions are going to relax, right?
Perhaps once extremists and disinformation nodes stop fighting vaccines and masks, and we can get the pandemic under control, we can start looking at lifting restrictions overall. It's tough, though, when there's so much disinformation being spread like bullshit across the country.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 3:39 PM on October 29, 2021 [32 favorites]
The last reason I'm aware of that was keeping masking and social distancing requirements in place is no longer applicable. I look forward to state governments across the United States relaxing all COVID restrictions immediately.
Even if the vaccines work 100%: It's a two-dose vaccine, where it'll take some time for them to get the first dose out. The second dose is administered no sooner than a month later.
In your best-case scenario, COVID restrictions should be lifted no sooner than in two months.
And then, of course, there's the fact that the vaccines DON'T work 100%. And that COVID isn't a binary "you live in perfect health" versus "you die." Getting COVID and living is still way worse than never getting it.
Restrictions should be lifted when the cases actually peter out. We can get through this if people stop demanding to end this sooner than is prudent.
posted by explosion at 3:45 PM on October 29, 2021 [34 favorites]
Even if the vaccines work 100%: It's a two-dose vaccine, where it'll take some time for them to get the first dose out. The second dose is administered no sooner than a month later.
In your best-case scenario, COVID restrictions should be lifted no sooner than in two months.
And then, of course, there's the fact that the vaccines DON'T work 100%. And that COVID isn't a binary "you live in perfect health" versus "you die." Getting COVID and living is still way worse than never getting it.
Restrictions should be lifted when the cases actually peter out. We can get through this if people stop demanding to end this sooner than is prudent.
posted by explosion at 3:45 PM on October 29, 2021 [34 favorites]
So far as I can tell, all metrics are indicating the USA has overcome COVID.
The US will not come anywhere close to overcoming COVID for several months, minimum, and that's only if we keep getting more mandates, insurance company incentives, etc. Look at Portugal and the handful of other countries that have almost certainly reached herd immunity and they still have new cases and new deaths. That's after a month of virtually all Portuguese adults being fully vaccinated and, although the children are not vaccinated, many of them will have been exposed already. That's pretty close to as good as it's going to get anytime soon.
The US, by contrast, is only at 58% of the population fully vaccinated, and many of them need a booster that many won't get. Even with the very high numbers of cases the US has had, we are likely still pretty far away from herd immunity.
What the US will get is subpopulations of fully immunized people who continue to take precautions and who can live at very low risk of severe disease. But it's going to continue to wear at the country as a whole for months.
In my locale, for vaccinated people, COVID is now less risky than the flu ever has been
This is just flat wrong. Nothing about vaccination rates has made COVID less dangerous. It's still just as dangerous as it ever was to get COVID (more so because of the variants, in fact). For people at heightened risk (especially the elderly), vaccination is not a magic shield. A vaccinated 86 year old who gets COVID has the same risk of death as an unvaccinated 61 year old one. It's a big improvement, but still a non-trivial risk. That's why preventing disease in the first place with masks, distancing, etc is so important and will remain so for a good while yet.
posted by jedicus at 3:45 PM on October 29, 2021 [31 favorites]
The US will not come anywhere close to overcoming COVID for several months, minimum, and that's only if we keep getting more mandates, insurance company incentives, etc. Look at Portugal and the handful of other countries that have almost certainly reached herd immunity and they still have new cases and new deaths. That's after a month of virtually all Portuguese adults being fully vaccinated and, although the children are not vaccinated, many of them will have been exposed already. That's pretty close to as good as it's going to get anytime soon.
The US, by contrast, is only at 58% of the population fully vaccinated, and many of them need a booster that many won't get. Even with the very high numbers of cases the US has had, we are likely still pretty far away from herd immunity.
What the US will get is subpopulations of fully immunized people who continue to take precautions and who can live at very low risk of severe disease. But it's going to continue to wear at the country as a whole for months.
In my locale, for vaccinated people, COVID is now less risky than the flu ever has been
This is just flat wrong. Nothing about vaccination rates has made COVID less dangerous. It's still just as dangerous as it ever was to get COVID (more so because of the variants, in fact). For people at heightened risk (especially the elderly), vaccination is not a magic shield. A vaccinated 86 year old who gets COVID has the same risk of death as an unvaccinated 61 year old one. It's a big improvement, but still a non-trivial risk. That's why preventing disease in the first place with masks, distancing, etc is so important and will remain so for a good while yet.
posted by jedicus at 3:45 PM on October 29, 2021 [31 favorites]
I hate that my immediate thought was that the anti-vax wars are going to get even uglier.
School board meetings are going to go especially more insane, especially if any school system even so much as thinks about having vaccinations done in schools.
posted by Thorzdad at 3:46 PM on October 29, 2021 [7 favorites]
School board meetings are going to go especially more insane, especially if any school system even so much as thinks about having vaccinations done in schools.
posted by Thorzdad at 3:46 PM on October 29, 2021 [7 favorites]
COVID does not just kill you. Many COVID survivors are facing lifelong damage to their health.
posted by hydropsyche at 3:51 PM on October 29, 2021 [19 favorites]
posted by hydropsyche at 3:51 PM on October 29, 2021 [19 favorites]
For anyone listening to the Covid is not dangerous to kids noise, please dont.
Even among children age 1-14, COVID-19 was in the top 10 leading causes of death through August and September 2021. Among children age 5-14, COVID-19 ranked as the number 6 leading cause of death in August and September. Among children ages 1-4, COVID-19’s rank rose from number 13 to number 7 among leading causes of death in August 2021 and held there in September.
There are non-fatal outcomes that are undesirable also.
[I see that the comment I was responding to has vanished.]
posted by rdr at 3:52 PM on October 29, 2021 [34 favorites]
Even among children age 1-14, COVID-19 was in the top 10 leading causes of death through August and September 2021. Among children age 5-14, COVID-19 ranked as the number 6 leading cause of death in August and September. Among children ages 1-4, COVID-19’s rank rose from number 13 to number 7 among leading causes of death in August 2021 and held there in September.
There are non-fatal outcomes that are undesirable also.
[I see that the comment I was responding to has vanished.]
posted by rdr at 3:52 PM on October 29, 2021 [34 favorites]
Georgia deaths for vaccinated people are at 17.7 per 100,000 people. Previous years have had flu death rates of 3.6-15.8 deaths per 100,000 people.
I kind of understand what you're saying - the relative risk for covid is similar to that of other risks. On an individual level, this might seem like a breath of relief. But hospitals and staff don't work on relative risk, they're a fixed number and don't magically scale (they have been quitting/striking in droves, so actually declining). Nor can we restrict medical resources to only those who have been vaccinated.
posted by meowzilla at 3:54 PM on October 29, 2021 [13 favorites]
I kind of understand what you're saying - the relative risk for covid is similar to that of other risks. On an individual level, this might seem like a breath of relief. But hospitals and staff don't work on relative risk, they're a fixed number and don't magically scale (they have been quitting/striking in droves, so actually declining). Nor can we restrict medical resources to only those who have been vaccinated.
posted by meowzilla at 3:54 PM on October 29, 2021 [13 favorites]
The second dose is administered no sooner than a month later.
21 days, same as adults. You may be confusing Pfizer's vaccine with Moderna's, which will be 28 days apart (again, same as adults.)
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 4:26 PM on October 29, 2021 [2 favorites]
21 days, same as adults. You may be confusing Pfizer's vaccine with Moderna's, which will be 28 days apart (again, same as adults.)
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 4:26 PM on October 29, 2021 [2 favorites]
This is great news. Kids are and always will be vectors for respiratory infectious diseases, because they are snot monsters. (I say this with love and affection.) Covid may be relatively less risky for children, but kids don't live on some grown-up-free Lost Boys island; they have parents and grandparents and teachers who ARE at higher risk. It's analogous to vaccination for rubella, which is NBD for toddlers but seriously a problem for any pregnant people (mothers, aunts, teachers, bus drivers) they may interact with.
For those who think the US has beaten covid, that horse was out of the barn in February 2020. Covid has an animal reservoir, where it will continue to circulate and periodically jump back to humans, in a "new and improved" vaccine-defying form. We won't ever eliminate it, unless we manage to vaccinate every mammal on the planet. Good luck with that.
I heard someone say the other day that at least at this point in the pandemic, the US can either choose between lifting restrictions or keeping case counts low. Because we can't do both.
posted by basalganglia at 4:28 PM on October 29, 2021 [13 favorites]
For those who think the US has beaten covid, that horse was out of the barn in February 2020. Covid has an animal reservoir, where it will continue to circulate and periodically jump back to humans, in a "new and improved" vaccine-defying form. We won't ever eliminate it, unless we manage to vaccinate every mammal on the planet. Good luck with that.
I heard someone say the other day that at least at this point in the pandemic, the US can either choose between lifting restrictions or keeping case counts low. Because we can't do both.
posted by basalganglia at 4:28 PM on October 29, 2021 [13 favorites]
I was under the impression that there were no restrictions or mask requirements in the high-COVID-incidence regions of the US. Restrictions are in place primarily in low-risk areas.
posted by mr_roboto at 4:41 PM on October 29, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by mr_roboto at 4:41 PM on October 29, 2021 [2 favorites]
COVID does not just kill you. Many COVID survivors are facing lifelong damage to their health.
Yup, but as many currently disabled and immunocompromised folks will tell you, people who refuse to get vaxxed or believe it's nothing more than a nasty flu are okay with those folks dying as long as they can go back to their ableist normal.
Frankly, long COVID seems more terrifying, especially if you live in a country where healthcare is utter shit unless you have deep pockets.
posted by Kitteh at 4:50 PM on October 29, 2021 [27 favorites]
Yup, but as many currently disabled and immunocompromised folks will tell you, people who refuse to get vaxxed or believe it's nothing more than a nasty flu are okay with those folks dying as long as they can go back to their ableist normal.
Frankly, long COVID seems more terrifying, especially if you live in a country where healthcare is utter shit unless you have deep pockets.
posted by Kitteh at 4:50 PM on October 29, 2021 [27 favorites]
That must be great.
Point your ire in the direction of your neighbors/fellow state residents, because the fact that over here we're behaving like decent, rule-following, science-believing people having wild success doesn't make it our fault that your neighbors are not.
...err, unless pointing your ire in their direction would get you shot, of course. In that case don't. In that case maybe just keep it quiet.
posted by aramaic at 7:19 PM on October 29, 2021 [1 favorite]
Point your ire in the direction of your neighbors/fellow state residents, because the fact that over here we're behaving like decent, rule-following, science-believing people having wild success doesn't make it our fault that your neighbors are not.
...err, unless pointing your ire in their direction would get you shot, of course. In that case don't. In that case maybe just keep it quiet.
posted by aramaic at 7:19 PM on October 29, 2021 [1 favorite]
So the restrictions are going to relax, right?
I really hope not. Even in my high vaccination rate area, the hospitals are still slammed, and I'd still rather like places like grocery stores be requiring masks and be able to point to the mandate rather than corporate policy as the bad guy. Vaccines are good, vaccines + masks are better. I like going to the occasional concert and having a minor inconvenience make things a lot safer for everyone.
posted by Candleman at 7:44 PM on October 29, 2021 [16 favorites]
I really hope not. Even in my high vaccination rate area, the hospitals are still slammed, and I'd still rather like places like grocery stores be requiring masks and be able to point to the mandate rather than corporate policy as the bad guy. Vaccines are good, vaccines + masks are better. I like going to the occasional concert and having a minor inconvenience make things a lot safer for everyone.
posted by Candleman at 7:44 PM on October 29, 2021 [16 favorites]
"For (unvaccinated) people age 0-4, rates of COVID death/hospitalization are basically equal to the flu."
I mean ... have you ever seen or taken care of a 0-to-four-year-old with the flu? With RSV? With whooping cough? Have you ever seen the NICU and PICU during flu season? "Only as bad as the flu" is like -- duuuuuuuuuude, do you hate children, or do you just hate the pediatric hospitalists who end up with PTSD after flu season every year from the number of infant and toddler deaths they can't prevent and have to just watch happen?
"The last reason I'm aware of that was keeping masking and social distancing requirements in place is no longer applicable."
So "the last reason" is kids 5 to 11, and children under 5 don't count? Their parents, who may not have access to childcare, don't count? You just want to permanently remove all mothers (and yes, it will very disproportionately be mothers) with small children from the workforce and from the life of the nation, because they have to cower at home with their infants and toddlers so they don't catch Covid from unmasked adults? Early childhood parenting in the United State should be WORSE? Instead of sending women back to work two weeks post-partum, we should just expel them from the workforce entirely until their children are five, or force them to risk their child catching a deadly disease? (While tying their health care access to being employed, obviously, so all those parents who leave jobs to protect their children now have bad health care access too! Yay!) How many women, who were able to tentatively rejoin the workforce because child care locations were masked (and, best case, testing weekly) will have to leave again because their children aren't safe, if mask mandates are removed because everyone 5 and up is vaccinated -- but infants and toddlers aren't? And with all the jackasses suing the states and the feds for their religious (/obviously political) right to not be vaccinated, it is really hard to find a childcare location where all the staff are vaccinated. And you have no guarantees about the other parents, even if the staff are vaccinated.
My children will all be fully vaccinated by Christmas. But my nieces and nephews won't be, and do you have any idea how much of a shit sandwich this pandemic has been for parents of infants and toddlers? Even the most privileged, who can afford nannies and who can work from home in knowledge jobs, have been stretched beyond the breaking point. Those who have to work, who have to do in-person work, who have few or no care options, have suffered even more. And your answer is, "Well, that doesn't matter, let's just ignore the people who have already borne the worst burden of this pandemic, because I'm fucking tired of wearing a mask."
We're ALL fucking tired of wearing masks! My youngest does not remember stores or libraries! She didn't remember that you're allowed to wear shoes in public buildings (the only places she can remember being are relative's houses, where you take your shoes off). She doesn't remember restaurants! She only remembers school with a mask! She has a significant speech delay, and do you know what's making that really hard to treat? FUCKING MASKS, she can't see other people's mouths to learn how to mimic the sounds and shapes.
She understands that her 1-year-old cousin can't get vaccinated yet, so she's going to keep wearing the mask to protect her baby cousin, and all the other babies and preschoolers in our community. There is not even a question in her mind. She absolutely can't wait to be maskless and not worry about Covid, but she's not an utter sociopath, so even she understands, at age 5, that she has to keep doing something uncomfortable to protect the extremely vulnerable infants and toddlers in our community, until they can be made safe as well. And she gets MAD when people don't want to wear masks, because it's the most trivial ask ever. Yes, it hurts her ears wearing a mask all day at school. Yes, it's annoying that she can't see her friends' faces. Yes, she's said to me, "Mommy, aren't mask lanyards great?" so she can take off her mask at outdoor recess and not lose it. But she will tell you, "Even after I get my shot, we have to wear masks at school, because we don't want little babies to die of Covid, and some people in kindergarten have babies at home."
I mean, five-year-olds get it. It's not hard.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:49 PM on October 29, 2021 [123 favorites]
I mean ... have you ever seen or taken care of a 0-to-four-year-old with the flu? With RSV? With whooping cough? Have you ever seen the NICU and PICU during flu season? "Only as bad as the flu" is like -- duuuuuuuuuude, do you hate children, or do you just hate the pediatric hospitalists who end up with PTSD after flu season every year from the number of infant and toddler deaths they can't prevent and have to just watch happen?
"The last reason I'm aware of that was keeping masking and social distancing requirements in place is no longer applicable."
So "the last reason" is kids 5 to 11, and children under 5 don't count? Their parents, who may not have access to childcare, don't count? You just want to permanently remove all mothers (and yes, it will very disproportionately be mothers) with small children from the workforce and from the life of the nation, because they have to cower at home with their infants and toddlers so they don't catch Covid from unmasked adults? Early childhood parenting in the United State should be WORSE? Instead of sending women back to work two weeks post-partum, we should just expel them from the workforce entirely until their children are five, or force them to risk their child catching a deadly disease? (While tying their health care access to being employed, obviously, so all those parents who leave jobs to protect their children now have bad health care access too! Yay!) How many women, who were able to tentatively rejoin the workforce because child care locations were masked (and, best case, testing weekly) will have to leave again because their children aren't safe, if mask mandates are removed because everyone 5 and up is vaccinated -- but infants and toddlers aren't? And with all the jackasses suing the states and the feds for their religious (/obviously political) right to not be vaccinated, it is really hard to find a childcare location where all the staff are vaccinated. And you have no guarantees about the other parents, even if the staff are vaccinated.
My children will all be fully vaccinated by Christmas. But my nieces and nephews won't be, and do you have any idea how much of a shit sandwich this pandemic has been for parents of infants and toddlers? Even the most privileged, who can afford nannies and who can work from home in knowledge jobs, have been stretched beyond the breaking point. Those who have to work, who have to do in-person work, who have few or no care options, have suffered even more. And your answer is, "Well, that doesn't matter, let's just ignore the people who have already borne the worst burden of this pandemic, because I'm fucking tired of wearing a mask."
We're ALL fucking tired of wearing masks! My youngest does not remember stores or libraries! She didn't remember that you're allowed to wear shoes in public buildings (the only places she can remember being are relative's houses, where you take your shoes off). She doesn't remember restaurants! She only remembers school with a mask! She has a significant speech delay, and do you know what's making that really hard to treat? FUCKING MASKS, she can't see other people's mouths to learn how to mimic the sounds and shapes.
She understands that her 1-year-old cousin can't get vaccinated yet, so she's going to keep wearing the mask to protect her baby cousin, and all the other babies and preschoolers in our community. There is not even a question in her mind. She absolutely can't wait to be maskless and not worry about Covid, but she's not an utter sociopath, so even she understands, at age 5, that she has to keep doing something uncomfortable to protect the extremely vulnerable infants and toddlers in our community, until they can be made safe as well. And she gets MAD when people don't want to wear masks, because it's the most trivial ask ever. Yes, it hurts her ears wearing a mask all day at school. Yes, it's annoying that she can't see her friends' faces. Yes, she's said to me, "Mommy, aren't mask lanyards great?" so she can take off her mask at outdoor recess and not lose it. But she will tell you, "Even after I get my shot, we have to wear masks at school, because we don't want little babies to die of Covid, and some people in kindergarten have babies at home."
I mean, five-year-olds get it. It's not hard.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:49 PM on October 29, 2021 [123 favorites]
I have four children: twin boys about to turn 6, and their older sisters, of which only the 7-year-old is still alive.
Getting them vaccinated will mean far less sleepless nights worrying about another exposure at their school. It will mean that when other kids on their street aren't wearing masks, we don't have to cross the street to avoid them. It will mean that they can see their friends again, even if in limited amounts, and maybe they can remember their names now. (Do you know how heartbreaking it is to have your children know their friends faces from video messages and pictures, but they can't remember their names because they don't actually see them anymore?)
I've already buried one child in my life. I can't imagine doing it again.
posted by gwydapllew at 8:00 PM on October 29, 2021 [28 favorites]
Getting them vaccinated will mean far less sleepless nights worrying about another exposure at their school. It will mean that when other kids on their street aren't wearing masks, we don't have to cross the street to avoid them. It will mean that they can see their friends again, even if in limited amounts, and maybe they can remember their names now. (Do you know how heartbreaking it is to have your children know their friends faces from video messages and pictures, but they can't remember their names because they don't actually see them anymore?)
I've already buried one child in my life. I can't imagine doing it again.
posted by gwydapllew at 8:00 PM on October 29, 2021 [28 favorites]
Also, my state has had three rounds of state academic testing since Covid started, and while nobody's willing to go on the record yet, because this is based on very small sample sizes over short time horizons, during a global pandemic that created unprecedented stressors for students, there ARE statistically-significant learning losses/delays in children who had Covid, beyond the learning loss for "missing 2-3 weeks of school." Some teachers are reporting kids who had Covid last year continue to suffer from "brain fog," that early readers struggle to keep phonics sounds and letter shapes in their memory, that there are short-term memory errors in attempting long division (they lose track of what they're doing with the numbers mid-problem).
Maybe this is a blip, and next year, kids who had Covid are back to their expected academic trajectory. Or maybe, they had mild cases of Covid and they will struggle with memory issues for years on end. WE DON'T KNOW.
But "Oh, babies usually don't die of Covid!" is a super-cavalier thing to say when possibly those babies will struggle to learn to read in kindergarten because of permanent changes to the brain from Covid. We just don't know yet. Lead poisoning usually doesn't kill kids either, but the outcomes are bad enough that we really try hard to avoid it. We don't know nearly enough about the long-term effects of Covid, especially in those who suffer from "Long Covid," to be cavalier about small children catching it just because they don't usually die of it.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:03 PM on October 29, 2021 [46 favorites]
Maybe this is a blip, and next year, kids who had Covid are back to their expected academic trajectory. Or maybe, they had mild cases of Covid and they will struggle with memory issues for years on end. WE DON'T KNOW.
But "Oh, babies usually don't die of Covid!" is a super-cavalier thing to say when possibly those babies will struggle to learn to read in kindergarten because of permanent changes to the brain from Covid. We just don't know yet. Lead poisoning usually doesn't kill kids either, but the outcomes are bad enough that we really try hard to avoid it. We don't know nearly enough about the long-term effects of Covid, especially in those who suffer from "Long Covid," to be cavalier about small children catching it just because they don't usually die of it.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:03 PM on October 29, 2021 [46 favorites]
Having more children be eligible is great news; I hope enough parents make the right choice and that this is part of the path out of this mess.
Here, the restrictions are basically tied to how overloaded the hospitals are (rather than metrics like percent vaccinated or whatever). And since the hospitals are overloaded in part because places like Idaho are total shitshows (and worse, they are moocher shitshows, freeloading off of states with more willingness to spend on healthcare and impose restrictions), it feels like we are trapped in an endless cycle. Even if the risk to a vaccinated person from covid is low (which it is, assuming you are young and in good health), good luck if you break your ankle or need cancer surgery.
My heart breaks for the kids who have had their childhoods completely disrupted. We will be calculating the human costs from this for decades.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:10 PM on October 29, 2021 [5 favorites]
Here, the restrictions are basically tied to how overloaded the hospitals are (rather than metrics like percent vaccinated or whatever). And since the hospitals are overloaded in part because places like Idaho are total shitshows (and worse, they are moocher shitshows, freeloading off of states with more willingness to spend on healthcare and impose restrictions), it feels like we are trapped in an endless cycle. Even if the risk to a vaccinated person from covid is low (which it is, assuming you are young and in good health), good luck if you break your ankle or need cancer surgery.
My heart breaks for the kids who have had their childhoods completely disrupted. We will be calculating the human costs from this for decades.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:10 PM on October 29, 2021 [5 favorites]
The last reason I'm aware of that was keeping masking and social distancing requirements in place is no longer applicable. I look forward to state governments across the United States relaxing all COVID restrictions immediately.
The San Francisco area started removing some masking restrictions provided everyone could prove they were fully vaxxed in the middle of October, and it looks like they'll remove everything for adults eight weeks after the vaccines are available to kids provided case counts remain low. See here.
The vaccines take about 6 to 8 weeks to provide full protection, so that makes sense. Unfortunately, the measures the CDC uses to determine prevalence are flawed ways to asses risk post vaccines.
Across the ocean, Britain and Scandinavia already removed all restrictions and basically declared the pandemic over. In France, mask mandates for schools in most areas were lifted about two weeks ago.
It's not going to be popular on here, but most everyone involved understood early on that SARS-COV 2 was on destined to become another common respiratory disease causing virus once enough of the population acquired immunity either through exposure or vaccination like the other four coronaviruses that circulate in humans and the pandemic flu strains of 1918, 1957, 1968, and 2009. Our chances to eliminate SARS-COV 2 likely ended shortly after it first started to spread in Wuhan or wherever it actually originated, long before anyone on here likely even heard of it.
Public health, really all healthcare, involves a delicate balance between the harms and benefits interventions cause. Obviously reasonable people can agree that we needed emergency measures and mandates of all kinds to prevent mass death due to infection and hospital system collapses over the past two years. However, given widespread vaccination and widespread immunization acquired the hard way through natural infection, we're at a different stage of the disease now. Continued costs of the restrictions include: increased mental health issues amongst children and youth; learning loss after suspension of face to face learning even after short disruptions; school attendance and enrollment declines, particularly in high poverty underserved areas; and increased gun violence. We're rapidly approaching a stage of the disease when the increased harm caused by the restrictions will far outweigh the benefits, and people need to be prepared for this. Some combination of case counts, hospitalizations, and vaccination rates probably needs to be developed to make the determination to lift the restrictions.
Also, my state has had three rounds of state academic testing since Covid started, and while nobody's willing to go on the record yet, because this is based on very small sample sizes over short time horizons, during a global pandemic that created unprecedented stressors for students, there ARE statistically-significant learning losses/delays in children who had Covid, beyond the learning loss for "missing 2-3 weeks of school."
With respect, how exactly can you conclude this? As indicated the links I posted above, learning losses occurred even after a short interruption of in-person instruction (eight weeks) in a country with far more equitable educational resources and broadband access than the US. Considering some US kids lost contact with school entirely during the pandemic and experienced over a year and a half of virtual learning, I have no idea how one could possibly and responsibly attribute learning loss to post-covid "brain fog". Also, research indicates long covid in kids is rare and typically doesn't last long. Before people rush to jump on me, at least consider that the last linked article is review of 14 studies of long covid in kids from around the world.
I was under the impression that there were no restrictions or mask requirements in the high-COVID-incidence regions of the US. Restrictions are in place primarily in low-risk areas.
That is going to be the frustrating thing. The people and places who won't mask and follow restrictions are also the people and places who wont vaccinate and have low vax rates. We're going to end up with a state of affairs where the places that still need to worry about the pandemic continue to ignore it while the places that should be moving on continue with restrictions that cause more harm than good. I'm afraid that the disjunction could contribute to worsening political instability in the US and further erode trust in public health and other authorities, particularly amongst young people. Anecdotal I know, and please note this is the only personal anecdote I am using, from what I've heard amongst amongst vax skeptical folks roughly in the 18 to 34 bracket, many think the vaccines don't make a difference for them because COVID isn't a serious threat to their health and you can still spread the disease even if you are vaccinated. The first isn't really true, although they are correct that their risk is low, and the second is true, but it ignores that fact that vaccinated people are less likely to spread COVID. As a result, young people could still contribute to reducing transmission and risks incurred by individuals who either can't take or don't benefit as much from vaccination by vaccinating themselves. Unfortunately, the CDC's decision to press the fear button over the summer to justify vaxed people wearing masks cut through any nuance about disease spread by the vaccinated, and I'm afraid the damage is already irreversible.
posted by eagles123 at 8:54 PM on October 29, 2021 [7 favorites]
The San Francisco area started removing some masking restrictions provided everyone could prove they were fully vaxxed in the middle of October, and it looks like they'll remove everything for adults eight weeks after the vaccines are available to kids provided case counts remain low. See here.
The vaccines take about 6 to 8 weeks to provide full protection, so that makes sense. Unfortunately, the measures the CDC uses to determine prevalence are flawed ways to asses risk post vaccines.
Across the ocean, Britain and Scandinavia already removed all restrictions and basically declared the pandemic over. In France, mask mandates for schools in most areas were lifted about two weeks ago.
It's not going to be popular on here, but most everyone involved understood early on that SARS-COV 2 was on destined to become another common respiratory disease causing virus once enough of the population acquired immunity either through exposure or vaccination like the other four coronaviruses that circulate in humans and the pandemic flu strains of 1918, 1957, 1968, and 2009. Our chances to eliminate SARS-COV 2 likely ended shortly after it first started to spread in Wuhan or wherever it actually originated, long before anyone on here likely even heard of it.
Public health, really all healthcare, involves a delicate balance between the harms and benefits interventions cause. Obviously reasonable people can agree that we needed emergency measures and mandates of all kinds to prevent mass death due to infection and hospital system collapses over the past two years. However, given widespread vaccination and widespread immunization acquired the hard way through natural infection, we're at a different stage of the disease now. Continued costs of the restrictions include: increased mental health issues amongst children and youth; learning loss after suspension of face to face learning even after short disruptions; school attendance and enrollment declines, particularly in high poverty underserved areas; and increased gun violence. We're rapidly approaching a stage of the disease when the increased harm caused by the restrictions will far outweigh the benefits, and people need to be prepared for this. Some combination of case counts, hospitalizations, and vaccination rates probably needs to be developed to make the determination to lift the restrictions.
Also, my state has had three rounds of state academic testing since Covid started, and while nobody's willing to go on the record yet, because this is based on very small sample sizes over short time horizons, during a global pandemic that created unprecedented stressors for students, there ARE statistically-significant learning losses/delays in children who had Covid, beyond the learning loss for "missing 2-3 weeks of school."
With respect, how exactly can you conclude this? As indicated the links I posted above, learning losses occurred even after a short interruption of in-person instruction (eight weeks) in a country with far more equitable educational resources and broadband access than the US. Considering some US kids lost contact with school entirely during the pandemic and experienced over a year and a half of virtual learning, I have no idea how one could possibly and responsibly attribute learning loss to post-covid "brain fog". Also, research indicates long covid in kids is rare and typically doesn't last long. Before people rush to jump on me, at least consider that the last linked article is review of 14 studies of long covid in kids from around the world.
I was under the impression that there were no restrictions or mask requirements in the high-COVID-incidence regions of the US. Restrictions are in place primarily in low-risk areas.
That is going to be the frustrating thing. The people and places who won't mask and follow restrictions are also the people and places who wont vaccinate and have low vax rates. We're going to end up with a state of affairs where the places that still need to worry about the pandemic continue to ignore it while the places that should be moving on continue with restrictions that cause more harm than good. I'm afraid that the disjunction could contribute to worsening political instability in the US and further erode trust in public health and other authorities, particularly amongst young people. Anecdotal I know, and please note this is the only personal anecdote I am using, from what I've heard amongst amongst vax skeptical folks roughly in the 18 to 34 bracket, many think the vaccines don't make a difference for them because COVID isn't a serious threat to their health and you can still spread the disease even if you are vaccinated. The first isn't really true, although they are correct that their risk is low, and the second is true, but it ignores that fact that vaccinated people are less likely to spread COVID. As a result, young people could still contribute to reducing transmission and risks incurred by individuals who either can't take or don't benefit as much from vaccination by vaccinating themselves. Unfortunately, the CDC's decision to press the fear button over the summer to justify vaxed people wearing masks cut through any nuance about disease spread by the vaccinated, and I'm afraid the damage is already irreversible.
posted by eagles123 at 8:54 PM on October 29, 2021 [7 favorites]
"With respect, how exactly can you conclude this?"
I don't conclude this. I spent five years on the school board of a large urban district in the US, and I am still close with a bunch of the statistics/testing people from that time, and from other connections I made. NONE of them are yet willing to say "Children who had Covid are statistically significantly more likely to suffer from memory problems." But basically all of them are willing to say, off the record, "Yo, there's some shit in the data that is really concerning to me and I hope it disappears next year."
It is being quietly discussed among everyone I know who does school testing data -- at the school and district level, at the state level, at the university interpreting-the-data level. There is not yet enough to say there's a THING. But everyone I know who's involved in school testing and test benchmarking is concerned that it might be a thing, and worried that it might "prove out" in the next couple of years. I literally do not know a single testing/data person who ISN'T worried that long-term Covid effects might turn up in school data, beyond the expected effects of "missed school" and "endured the trauma of a global pandemic."
We're all going to hold our breath and cross our fingers, and I personally have a lot of faith in the plasticity of the brains of children. But there are a LOT of school data specialists saying, "Phonics is turning out to be a problem for kindergarteners who were infected with Covid, at a higher rate than expected." HOPEFULLY that's temporary! But we just don't know, and it'll be a while before we DO know.
And like, let me say in a more cosmic way, in fifth grade (10 years old), there is no difference in reading ability or academic achievement between children who learned to read when they were 2 years old, and children who learned to read when they were 6 years old. That's not an artifact of native intelligence; it's an artifact of the wildly uneven development all children experience. If your kid is 7 and can't read? It's time to start to worry a little and ensure your district is putting your kid with a literacy specialist. But if your kid is 6 and juuuuuuuust now starting to get enough phonics to start reading, and all your friends' kids started reading at 2? They're probably all going to be at the same level when they're 10.
So EVEN IF we see a persistent statistically-significant delay in kindergarteners who contracted Covid, it may not be significant in five years. Nobody should panic! And nobody is panicking! But everyone I know who does school testing data analysis is saying, "Huh, we see a thing here, that we have not seen before, and we hope it does not persist."
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:21 PM on October 29, 2021 [18 favorites]
I don't conclude this. I spent five years on the school board of a large urban district in the US, and I am still close with a bunch of the statistics/testing people from that time, and from other connections I made. NONE of them are yet willing to say "Children who had Covid are statistically significantly more likely to suffer from memory problems." But basically all of them are willing to say, off the record, "Yo, there's some shit in the data that is really concerning to me and I hope it disappears next year."
It is being quietly discussed among everyone I know who does school testing data -- at the school and district level, at the state level, at the university interpreting-the-data level. There is not yet enough to say there's a THING. But everyone I know who's involved in school testing and test benchmarking is concerned that it might be a thing, and worried that it might "prove out" in the next couple of years. I literally do not know a single testing/data person who ISN'T worried that long-term Covid effects might turn up in school data, beyond the expected effects of "missed school" and "endured the trauma of a global pandemic."
We're all going to hold our breath and cross our fingers, and I personally have a lot of faith in the plasticity of the brains of children. But there are a LOT of school data specialists saying, "Phonics is turning out to be a problem for kindergarteners who were infected with Covid, at a higher rate than expected." HOPEFULLY that's temporary! But we just don't know, and it'll be a while before we DO know.
And like, let me say in a more cosmic way, in fifth grade (10 years old), there is no difference in reading ability or academic achievement between children who learned to read when they were 2 years old, and children who learned to read when they were 6 years old. That's not an artifact of native intelligence; it's an artifact of the wildly uneven development all children experience. If your kid is 7 and can't read? It's time to start to worry a little and ensure your district is putting your kid with a literacy specialist. But if your kid is 6 and juuuuuuuust now starting to get enough phonics to start reading, and all your friends' kids started reading at 2? They're probably all going to be at the same level when they're 10.
So EVEN IF we see a persistent statistically-significant delay in kindergarteners who contracted Covid, it may not be significant in five years. Nobody should panic! And nobody is panicking! But everyone I know who does school testing data analysis is saying, "Huh, we see a thing here, that we have not seen before, and we hope it does not persist."
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:21 PM on October 29, 2021 [18 favorites]
Across the ocean, Britain ... already removed all restrictions and basically declared the pandemic over.
This may not make the case you think it's making.
It's not going to be popular on here, but most everyone involved understood early on that SARS-COV 2 was on destined to become another common respiratory disease causing virus
It's not that we don't understand that, it's that we'd like the numbers to drop to the point that cancer and heart attack patients aren't being turned away from hospitals before we say that it's just another thing that's going to happen.
posted by Candleman at 11:42 PM on October 29, 2021 [24 favorites]
This may not make the case you think it's making.
It's not going to be popular on here, but most everyone involved understood early on that SARS-COV 2 was on destined to become another common respiratory disease causing virus
It's not that we don't understand that, it's that we'd like the numbers to drop to the point that cancer and heart attack patients aren't being turned away from hospitals before we say that it's just another thing that's going to happen.
posted by Candleman at 11:42 PM on October 29, 2021 [24 favorites]
This may not make the case you think it's making.
Yes, SARS-COV 2 is endemic in Britain. And cases fell by 10 percent last week. The point is cases are no longer considered a valid measure of disease burden at this stage considering the impacts of vaccine induced and natural immunity. Germany similarly stopped using cases as a measure when determining the necessity of public health interventions.
It's not that we don't understand that, it's that we'd like the numbers to drop to the point that cancer and heart attack patients aren't being turned away from hospitals before we say that it's just another thing that's going to happen.
Yes, hospitalizations should be the metric, as well as vaccination and local immunity rates. The problem is the CDC hasn't updated its criteria yet, which is a problem.
We're all going to hold our breath and cross our fingers, and I personally have a lot of faith in the plasticity of the brains of children. But there are a LOT of school data specialists saying, "Phonics is turning out to be a problem for kindergarteners who were infected with Covid, at a higher rate than expected." HOPEFULLY that's temporary! But we just don't know, and it'll be a while before we DO know.
The problem is that public health decisions need to made at the population and not the individual level. NPIs, like all medical interventions, cause harm as well as benefits. When weighing these considerations, we have to follow the science, which continues to find that SARS-COV 2 poses risks to children comparable to and in some cases less than risks from common childhood diseases and activities such as swimming and riding in cars, as well as mental health and developmental risks arising from the effects of NPIs. I realize this isn't a popular statement to make here, but its always been true. The studies I linked, conducted and peer reviewed by professionals with medical and scientific training, continue to bear this out. School data analysts do not have that training or the resources to conduct such studies. I'm not saying that some children won't have educational impacts from COVID complications, but finding those impacts and weighing them against the wider impacts of NPI related learning disruptions are more complicated than observations communicated through anecdotes in private conversation.
Last, I'll point out that Marin County plans to lift its mask mandate for vaccinated people. \Hopefully that convinces more people to vaccinate, as well as to vaccinate their children. Right now, many parents say they aren't going to vaccinate their kids. Then again, Britain's equivalent of our FDA declined to recommend vaccines for kids under 12, not without controversy, given the limited impacts of SARS-COV 2 on children. Norway also didn't recommend shots for kids under 12 before reopening. Maybe that makes sense for them given they have higher adult vaccination rates than the US. I don't know. Personally, I'd be fine with mandating the vaccines for kids in the US, but I recognize the decision isn't as clear cut as US media coverage makes it seem to certain segments of the US population. The same is true for the boosters.
Overall, I'm not everyone should drop their restrictions at once in the US and for all time, but I do think its time we start thinking about how and when to do it, as well as develop a better set of metrics to use in line with other countries who have better public health systems and less polarized debates than we do. I also think we need to recognize that the decisions aren't as clear cut, right and wrong isn't as unambiguous, as it is being presented here.
posted by eagles123 at 12:25 AM on October 30, 2021 [8 favorites]
Yes, SARS-COV 2 is endemic in Britain. And cases fell by 10 percent last week. The point is cases are no longer considered a valid measure of disease burden at this stage considering the impacts of vaccine induced and natural immunity. Germany similarly stopped using cases as a measure when determining the necessity of public health interventions.
It's not that we don't understand that, it's that we'd like the numbers to drop to the point that cancer and heart attack patients aren't being turned away from hospitals before we say that it's just another thing that's going to happen.
Yes, hospitalizations should be the metric, as well as vaccination and local immunity rates. The problem is the CDC hasn't updated its criteria yet, which is a problem.
We're all going to hold our breath and cross our fingers, and I personally have a lot of faith in the plasticity of the brains of children. But there are a LOT of school data specialists saying, "Phonics is turning out to be a problem for kindergarteners who were infected with Covid, at a higher rate than expected." HOPEFULLY that's temporary! But we just don't know, and it'll be a while before we DO know.
The problem is that public health decisions need to made at the population and not the individual level. NPIs, like all medical interventions, cause harm as well as benefits. When weighing these considerations, we have to follow the science, which continues to find that SARS-COV 2 poses risks to children comparable to and in some cases less than risks from common childhood diseases and activities such as swimming and riding in cars, as well as mental health and developmental risks arising from the effects of NPIs. I realize this isn't a popular statement to make here, but its always been true. The studies I linked, conducted and peer reviewed by professionals with medical and scientific training, continue to bear this out. School data analysts do not have that training or the resources to conduct such studies. I'm not saying that some children won't have educational impacts from COVID complications, but finding those impacts and weighing them against the wider impacts of NPI related learning disruptions are more complicated than observations communicated through anecdotes in private conversation.
Last, I'll point out that Marin County plans to lift its mask mandate for vaccinated people. \Hopefully that convinces more people to vaccinate, as well as to vaccinate their children. Right now, many parents say they aren't going to vaccinate their kids. Then again, Britain's equivalent of our FDA declined to recommend vaccines for kids under 12, not without controversy, given the limited impacts of SARS-COV 2 on children. Norway also didn't recommend shots for kids under 12 before reopening. Maybe that makes sense for them given they have higher adult vaccination rates than the US. I don't know. Personally, I'd be fine with mandating the vaccines for kids in the US, but I recognize the decision isn't as clear cut as US media coverage makes it seem to certain segments of the US population. The same is true for the boosters.
Overall, I'm not everyone should drop their restrictions at once in the US and for all time, but I do think its time we start thinking about how and when to do it, as well as develop a better set of metrics to use in line with other countries who have better public health systems and less polarized debates than we do. I also think we need to recognize that the decisions aren't as clear cut, right and wrong isn't as unambiguous, as it is being presented here.
posted by eagles123 at 12:25 AM on October 30, 2021 [8 favorites]
I am fully vaxxed and boostered. My kids are older, in their 20s. They have all had both covid and the vaccine. If my kids were less than say 10 which I admit is somewhat arbitrary, I am not sure I would get them vaccinated. Of course, my ex would have as big a say, but left to me, I know I would struggle with the decision. I am in my late 50's. I am really too old to worry about the long-term affects to me. Say in 25 years when I am in my low 80s, I can worry about it then. But until there is way more data especially on longer than a few months or a year, I would be hesitant to subject my children to possible long term affects when their risk without the vaccine is so low.
It seems to me that either decision for this age group is a reasonable decision based on what a parent or guardian thinks is in their child's best interests. It bothers me some of the things said at the FDA about the only way to know is to try.
When I was first vaxxed and questioned by friends about why, I said only half joking that I had been to over 150 Grateful Dead concerts. I have ingested things I had no idea what they were and things I knew had a much higher probability of having downside than upside to my body. Taking that kind of risk for someone else whose health and well being you are responsible for, is a whole other matter.
If you trust the science and the numbers, many of the decisions being made by people in authority are inconsistent. I get that this is new, that information is dynamic and what is said last is based on the latest information.
Finally, the more I think about it and as I write this, I find myself leaning towards getting my young child vaccinated. But, I just do not accept that it is an easy obvious decision. This comes down to trust. Do you trust the government or the people in the government? There are two kinds of people, those who trust the government and those who question authority. I am not talking about Antifa or QAnon either. I am talking about everyday working folks who, for good reason and no reason, do not trust the government.
There are plenty of people who did not trust Trump who said no shot that he develops on his watch will be acceptable who are now begging/demanding people get those very shots. There are people that think that being a Fauci fanboy makes no sense as he has been caught in lie or misstatements after misstatements.
My point is that giving a child so young an untested vaccine is a matter of trust and faith. Most doctors I assume would say to get it. I guess I would have a long discussion with my pediatrician (can you do that in this age of fill em and bill em medicine?) about what to do. I am not a doctor so I guess to some extent every advice I follow from my doctor is based on trust or trusting them to have done the research.
I also think at that age, it has a lot to do with an individual child's physical and mental development. There are mature 11 year olds and immature 11 year olds. Some kids have started puberty and some have not. Some are still developing their thinking. I am glad it is available for those parents who think the risk reward of getting vaxxed is a better ratio than not getting vaxxed.
posted by AugustWest at 12:41 AM on October 30, 2021 [5 favorites]
It seems to me that either decision for this age group is a reasonable decision based on what a parent or guardian thinks is in their child's best interests. It bothers me some of the things said at the FDA about the only way to know is to try.
When I was first vaxxed and questioned by friends about why, I said only half joking that I had been to over 150 Grateful Dead concerts. I have ingested things I had no idea what they were and things I knew had a much higher probability of having downside than upside to my body. Taking that kind of risk for someone else whose health and well being you are responsible for, is a whole other matter.
If you trust the science and the numbers, many of the decisions being made by people in authority are inconsistent. I get that this is new, that information is dynamic and what is said last is based on the latest information.
Finally, the more I think about it and as I write this, I find myself leaning towards getting my young child vaccinated. But, I just do not accept that it is an easy obvious decision. This comes down to trust. Do you trust the government or the people in the government? There are two kinds of people, those who trust the government and those who question authority. I am not talking about Antifa or QAnon either. I am talking about everyday working folks who, for good reason and no reason, do not trust the government.
There are plenty of people who did not trust Trump who said no shot that he develops on his watch will be acceptable who are now begging/demanding people get those very shots. There are people that think that being a Fauci fanboy makes no sense as he has been caught in lie or misstatements after misstatements.
My point is that giving a child so young an untested vaccine is a matter of trust and faith. Most doctors I assume would say to get it. I guess I would have a long discussion with my pediatrician (can you do that in this age of fill em and bill em medicine?) about what to do. I am not a doctor so I guess to some extent every advice I follow from my doctor is based on trust or trusting them to have done the research.
I also think at that age, it has a lot to do with an individual child's physical and mental development. There are mature 11 year olds and immature 11 year olds. Some kids have started puberty and some have not. Some are still developing their thinking. I am glad it is available for those parents who think the risk reward of getting vaxxed is a better ratio than not getting vaxxed.
posted by AugustWest at 12:41 AM on October 30, 2021 [5 favorites]
until there is way more data especially on longer than a few months or a year
Please don't take this as a personal attack, but I am fucking sick of this mealy-mouthed antivaxx statement. I have heard it from people long before covid (back then it was MMR, which after Andrew Wakefield was exposed as a fraud, the antivaxxers happily moved the goalposts to "too many too soon"), and covid stress just dialed it up to 11. In fact, the reason I switched out of pediatrics to neurology is because sadly, many parents don't have the desire and/or resources to keep their kids healthy, and as a society we kind of collectively shrug and move on unless it's really egregious (or the parent is BIPOC) in which case we call in Social Services and wash our hands of the whole thing.
4500 children in N America and Europe were enrolled in the Pfizer trial, which started in July 2020. This EUA is based on the 5-11 yo half; the 6 mo-5 year data is likely to be out late this year. How many and how long would have been enough to convince you? Haha just kidding, that's a rhetorical question because "long-term data" is this century's "too many too soon."
Our data on the safety and efficacy of pediatric-dosed covid vaccine is nearly as long as our data on the safety of covid infection. Only one of those I'd recommend.
posted by basalganglia at 2:26 AM on October 30, 2021 [60 favorites]
Please don't take this as a personal attack, but I am fucking sick of this mealy-mouthed antivaxx statement. I have heard it from people long before covid (back then it was MMR, which after Andrew Wakefield was exposed as a fraud, the antivaxxers happily moved the goalposts to "too many too soon"), and covid stress just dialed it up to 11. In fact, the reason I switched out of pediatrics to neurology is because sadly, many parents don't have the desire and/or resources to keep their kids healthy, and as a society we kind of collectively shrug and move on unless it's really egregious (or the parent is BIPOC) in which case we call in Social Services and wash our hands of the whole thing.
4500 children in N America and Europe were enrolled in the Pfizer trial, which started in July 2020. This EUA is based on the 5-11 yo half; the 6 mo-5 year data is likely to be out late this year. How many and how long would have been enough to convince you? Haha just kidding, that's a rhetorical question because "long-term data" is this century's "too many too soon."
Our data on the safety and efficacy of pediatric-dosed covid vaccine is nearly as long as our data on the safety of covid infection. Only one of those I'd recommend.
posted by basalganglia at 2:26 AM on October 30, 2021 [60 favorites]
I heard a statistic that really drove home for me the other day why hospital admissions are really the number to pay attention to now: 1 covid patient blocks 15 surgery patients from getting care. This is in the Netherlands, where I live, but I think it holds for the States as well. A patient coming out of surgery will usually spend a day in the IC, but a covid patient is there for over a week. I hadn't thought of it that way before, but each covid patient takes up so much more of a hospital's IC resources than other patients.
Except, you can't wait for hospital admissions to go up to increase measures because then you're too late -- vaccinated people will experience the collateral damage of not being able to get care when needed.
So there are two options: increase IC capacity (so many thoughts that I'm going to leave aside for now), or put measures in at some earlier threshold before the ICs are actually full.
And, more related to the topic of the post, here's a recent paper in the Journal of Infectious Diseases about kids and covid. Quote from the conclusion:
Symptomatic and asymptomatic children can carry high quantities of live, replicating SARS-CoV-2, creating a potential reservoir for transmission and evolution of genetic variants.
posted by antinomia at 4:06 AM on October 30, 2021 [13 favorites]
Except, you can't wait for hospital admissions to go up to increase measures because then you're too late -- vaccinated people will experience the collateral damage of not being able to get care when needed.
So there are two options: increase IC capacity (so many thoughts that I'm going to leave aside for now), or put measures in at some earlier threshold before the ICs are actually full.
And, more related to the topic of the post, here's a recent paper in the Journal of Infectious Diseases about kids and covid. Quote from the conclusion:
Symptomatic and asymptomatic children can carry high quantities of live, replicating SARS-CoV-2, creating a potential reservoir for transmission and evolution of genetic variants.
posted by antinomia at 4:06 AM on October 30, 2021 [13 favorites]
Here in NZ we're going through the process of starting to live with the virus - we currently have 88% first shots and 74% - once we hit 90% the rules will change ....
No one's being forced to get their shots, and we have our own antivaxxers (often spouting the same conspiracy theories from the US) - what is going to happen is that there are going to be two classes of business establishments, they can choose to only take vaccinated customers and have much looser restrictions, or choose to let the unvaccinated in but live with limits on social distancing and number of patrons etc etc. Exactly what the limitations are is going to depend on how much virus is in the community.
This is likely to put lots of pressure on the unvaccinated, especially those who haven't gone down the conspiracy rabbit hole - things are going to get interesting over the next few months
posted by mbo at 5:38 AM on October 30, 2021 [3 favorites]
No one's being forced to get their shots, and we have our own antivaxxers (often spouting the same conspiracy theories from the US) - what is going to happen is that there are going to be two classes of business establishments, they can choose to only take vaccinated customers and have much looser restrictions, or choose to let the unvaccinated in but live with limits on social distancing and number of patrons etc etc. Exactly what the limitations are is going to depend on how much virus is in the community.
This is likely to put lots of pressure on the unvaccinated, especially those who haven't gone down the conspiracy rabbit hole - things are going to get interesting over the next few months
posted by mbo at 5:38 AM on October 30, 2021 [3 favorites]
But until there is way more data especially on longer than a few months or a year, I would be hesitant to subject my children to possible long term affects when their risk without the vaccine is so low.
The vaccines are safe. I wish people would stop implying they are not. Please stop.
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:47 AM on October 30, 2021 [41 favorites]
The vaccines are safe. I wish people would stop implying they are not. Please stop.
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:47 AM on October 30, 2021 [41 favorites]
It's worth noting that of the 5 adverse health outcomes reported happening to the kids in the pfizer trails included two broken limbs, and one kid swallowed a penny.
Like other studies they report everything whether it's related to the procedure or not
posted by mbo at 5:56 AM on October 30, 2021 [29 favorites]
Like other studies they report everything whether it's related to the procedure or not
posted by mbo at 5:56 AM on October 30, 2021 [29 favorites]
But until there is way more data especially on longer than a few months or a year, I would be hesitant to subject my children to possible long term affects when their risk without the vaccine is so low.
The mRNA from the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines is gone from your body in 72 hours. No vaccine in history has ever had "long term effects" that appear months or years later because that's just not how vaccines work. This is scaremongering misinformation. Quit repeating it.
posted by hydropsyche at 5:59 AM on October 30, 2021 [59 favorites]
The mRNA from the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines is gone from your body in 72 hours. No vaccine in history has ever had "long term effects" that appear months or years later because that's just not how vaccines work. This is scaremongering misinformation. Quit repeating it.
posted by hydropsyche at 5:59 AM on October 30, 2021 [59 favorites]
Guys, does it ever blow your mind that vaccines--an utter fucking miracle of modern science--are seen as the enemy? And that in 2020, it was more or less a collaborative effort to fast-track a solution to restore some semblance of normalcy, which, imo, was unprecedented, and yet there are weirdos and assholes who prevent society from doing just that??
Like, did these folks just think COVID was going to go away on its own? I would love to know what their non-vaccine soution is, but I think it's people boldly admitting they're okay if people die, who cares.
posted by Kitteh at 7:06 AM on October 30, 2021 [15 favorites]
Like, did these folks just think COVID was going to go away on its own? I would love to know what their non-vaccine soution is, but I think it's people boldly admitting they're okay if people die, who cares.
posted by Kitteh at 7:06 AM on October 30, 2021 [15 favorites]
one kid swallowed a penny.
I expect we will see a lot more of this in the 6 mo-5 yo group.
On the subject of other patients not receiving care because hospitals are overwhelmed: I could share about a million stories on this if it weren't for HIPAA. The only times there's been a "good" outcome (e.g. someone was able to snag a bed, get transferred to a higher-level medical center, walk out of the hospital alive) are when they literally used their privilege as doctors or nurses themselves to call on friends and jump the line. That's kind of gross, and to their credit they realize it is gross but they use their privilege anyway and I honestly don't blame them, because when facing the choice between death and privilege, I'd choose privilege too. Every other time, even with their own doctors, or me, trying to advocate, it's been "sorry, no room." I know plenty of fully vaccinated adults dealing with other things, who have died because there wasn't any room, most recently just yesterday. Those deaths don't get counted as covid-related, but maybe they should. For those of us who are still living this, it's not a hypothetical.
Children's hospitals are especially strained because they typically have less funding, fewer ICU facilities. So even one child who gets seriously sick with what is ought to be a preventable childhood illness (whether that's measles or meningitis or Hib, or soon enough, covid) takes up a proportionately high resource load. And that's not even counting the strain on the parents or other caregivers from missing work, maybe being sick themselves, etc.
My coworker's son's friend died of covid early in the pandemic. They were seven, maybe eight. I saw her the other day and she was absolutely giddy because she had gotten an appointment at a pharmacy an hour and a half away to get her kids vaxxed. I also suspect, based on anecdata, that a lot of health professionals' kids were enrolled in the trial, as a way to get early access to the vaccine. That gets back to the privilege issue earlier -- who has access to knowing which trials are happening where, and the job flexibility to take your kid to weekly clinical trial appointments. Again, I can't really blame the parents there, but just like the adult rollout/uptake, messaging is going to be really important to make sure the vaccine reaches kids in communities that really need it.
Luckily, the Kaplan-Meier graph is, in the words of Randall Munroe, good enough that you don't need to do statistics on it (page 63 of that document). Also from that document: "the estimated number of COVID-19 cases and associated hospitalizations prevented over 120 days per million of fully vaccinated children 5 to < 12 years of age is ~33,600 and 170 respectively."
There are about 40 million kids in this age range living in the US. Keeping more than 6000 kids out of the hospital is phenomenal. I wish there were more 5-11 year olds in my life so I could share the delight, maybe throw a Spooky Spectacular Halloween Special to celebrate (BRAAAAAAAAINS). Instead I think I might just eat this Costco-sized bag of "fun size" candies all by myself.
posted by basalganglia at 7:43 AM on October 30, 2021 [27 favorites]
I expect we will see a lot more of this in the 6 mo-5 yo group.
On the subject of other patients not receiving care because hospitals are overwhelmed: I could share about a million stories on this if it weren't for HIPAA. The only times there's been a "good" outcome (e.g. someone was able to snag a bed, get transferred to a higher-level medical center, walk out of the hospital alive) are when they literally used their privilege as doctors or nurses themselves to call on friends and jump the line. That's kind of gross, and to their credit they realize it is gross but they use their privilege anyway and I honestly don't blame them, because when facing the choice between death and privilege, I'd choose privilege too. Every other time, even with their own doctors, or me, trying to advocate, it's been "sorry, no room." I know plenty of fully vaccinated adults dealing with other things, who have died because there wasn't any room, most recently just yesterday. Those deaths don't get counted as covid-related, but maybe they should. For those of us who are still living this, it's not a hypothetical.
Children's hospitals are especially strained because they typically have less funding, fewer ICU facilities. So even one child who gets seriously sick with what is ought to be a preventable childhood illness (whether that's measles or meningitis or Hib, or soon enough, covid) takes up a proportionately high resource load. And that's not even counting the strain on the parents or other caregivers from missing work, maybe being sick themselves, etc.
My coworker's son's friend died of covid early in the pandemic. They were seven, maybe eight. I saw her the other day and she was absolutely giddy because she had gotten an appointment at a pharmacy an hour and a half away to get her kids vaxxed. I also suspect, based on anecdata, that a lot of health professionals' kids were enrolled in the trial, as a way to get early access to the vaccine. That gets back to the privilege issue earlier -- who has access to knowing which trials are happening where, and the job flexibility to take your kid to weekly clinical trial appointments. Again, I can't really blame the parents there, but just like the adult rollout/uptake, messaging is going to be really important to make sure the vaccine reaches kids in communities that really need it.
Luckily, the Kaplan-Meier graph is, in the words of Randall Munroe, good enough that you don't need to do statistics on it (page 63 of that document). Also from that document: "the estimated number of COVID-19 cases and associated hospitalizations prevented over 120 days per million of fully vaccinated children 5 to < 12 years of age is ~33,600 and 170 respectively."
There are about 40 million kids in this age range living in the US. Keeping more than 6000 kids out of the hospital is phenomenal. I wish there were more 5-11 year olds in my life so I could share the delight, maybe throw a Spooky Spectacular Halloween Special to celebrate (BRAAAAAAAAINS). Instead I think I might just eat this Costco-sized bag of "fun size" candies all by myself.
posted by basalganglia at 7:43 AM on October 30, 2021 [27 favorites]
This is scaremongering misinformation. Quit repeating it.
This. But, it's a super common concern that many people have, including people who are not otherwise in the slightest anti-vax or anti-public health, and it is interesting (and frustrating) to me how resilient that has been despite the clear information otherwise. It's obviously being fed by the anti-vaxers and has been for years, but I think it is effective because it touches on concerns we all have about bodily autonomy and the discomfort with having something injected that is intended to make changes in your body. This has been addressed successfully in past immunization campaigns, but seems now to be much more successful in reaching people via social media and social networks especially.
I heard a statistic that really drove home for me the other day why hospital admissions are really the number to pay attention to now: 1 covid patient blocks 15 surgery patients from getting care.
I am increasingly uncomfortable with the triage decisions that support this prioritization; I think the decisions are completely correct at the individual level (ie, the covid patient is sickest and needs that level of care) but incorrect at a societal level, particularly now that vaccines are freely available here.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:47 AM on October 30, 2021 [6 favorites]
This. But, it's a super common concern that many people have, including people who are not otherwise in the slightest anti-vax or anti-public health, and it is interesting (and frustrating) to me how resilient that has been despite the clear information otherwise. It's obviously being fed by the anti-vaxers and has been for years, but I think it is effective because it touches on concerns we all have about bodily autonomy and the discomfort with having something injected that is intended to make changes in your body. This has been addressed successfully in past immunization campaigns, but seems now to be much more successful in reaching people via social media and social networks especially.
I heard a statistic that really drove home for me the other day why hospital admissions are really the number to pay attention to now: 1 covid patient blocks 15 surgery patients from getting care.
I am increasingly uncomfortable with the triage decisions that support this prioritization; I think the decisions are completely correct at the individual level (ie, the covid patient is sickest and needs that level of care) but incorrect at a societal level, particularly now that vaccines are freely available here.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:47 AM on October 30, 2021 [6 favorites]
The “warp speed” rhetoric fuelled the narrative. So - it wasn’t rushed. mRNA technology has been around a while. SARS1 had a vaccine effort in development which folded when it was controlled. The trials eliminated the business gaps Where normally you don’t start production for the next trial phase because it’s expensive. Did this eliminate a bit of time? Yes. But other than the Dengue fever vaccine issue, which was related to its having multiple serotypes, yeah, not a lot of examples of vaccines with long term issues.
Also, the adult vaccines have been deployed in a massive effort.
I understand fear. I lost my baby to a 1:10,000 medical event compounded by a 1:100,000 chance she wouldn’t get the intervention she needed - a simple c-section. But there was a temporary surge and mistakes. I guarantee that if your child either is the rare Covid case or some really super weird thing that comes out of vaccination, you will grieve. But there is a particular pain when you know something that was available wasn’t used. That’s one reason my teen was front of the line and my child will be. But also - I do not want to contribute to another family’s pain. That means taking the population-level view and eliminating us as spreaders or ICU-bed takers as much as possible, for me.
Also, sane thing for masks and distancing. It’s a pain sometimes and there are arguments for little kids needing the input at school and home. But wearing a masks when I’m out? No problem.
For me, too, I’d rather a vaccine than a round of antibiotics or antivirals any day.
posted by warriorqueen at 8:25 AM on October 30, 2021 [25 favorites]
Also, the adult vaccines have been deployed in a massive effort.
I understand fear. I lost my baby to a 1:10,000 medical event compounded by a 1:100,000 chance she wouldn’t get the intervention she needed - a simple c-section. But there was a temporary surge and mistakes. I guarantee that if your child either is the rare Covid case or some really super weird thing that comes out of vaccination, you will grieve. But there is a particular pain when you know something that was available wasn’t used. That’s one reason my teen was front of the line and my child will be. But also - I do not want to contribute to another family’s pain. That means taking the population-level view and eliminating us as spreaders or ICU-bed takers as much as possible, for me.
Also, sane thing for masks and distancing. It’s a pain sometimes and there are arguments for little kids needing the input at school and home. But wearing a masks when I’m out? No problem.
For me, too, I’d rather a vaccine than a round of antibiotics or antivirals any day.
posted by warriorqueen at 8:25 AM on October 30, 2021 [25 favorites]
basalganglia - as a proxy I will send you a celebratory picture of my kid who is going as Plants vs. Zombies zombie and could not be happier that they can maybe have a birthday party in the new year.
It's all straight accumbens activity in this house, even without the candy.
posted by BlueBlueElectricBlue at 11:40 AM on October 30, 2021 [4 favorites]
It's all straight accumbens activity in this house, even without the candy.
posted by BlueBlueElectricBlue at 11:40 AM on October 30, 2021 [4 favorites]
It’s good news but still doesn’t help me. It’s okay to say that now, right? We’re all fundamentally alone here surrounded by devils with flags on their pickup trucks, right?
My wife’s 89 year old grandfather will still probably never meet his newest great grandson unless approval for 0-4 year olds comes soon.
I’m worried an EUA will never come for the age group with the lowest death rate so I guess my kid just grows up lonely and weird and finally gets to visit a playground or a grocery store or a relative six weeks after his fifth birthday.
Meanwhile my 9 year old nephew just got over his second infection this year and his father is still telling him he can’t have the vaccine because his natural immunity is way better.
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 12:21 PM on October 30, 2021 [12 favorites]
My wife’s 89 year old grandfather will still probably never meet his newest great grandson unless approval for 0-4 year olds comes soon.
I’m worried an EUA will never come for the age group with the lowest death rate so I guess my kid just grows up lonely and weird and finally gets to visit a playground or a grocery store or a relative six weeks after his fifth birthday.
Meanwhile my 9 year old nephew just got over his second infection this year and his father is still telling him he can’t have the vaccine because his natural immunity is way better.
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 12:21 PM on October 30, 2021 [12 favorites]
Like, did these folks just think COVID was going to go away on its own? I would love to know what their non-vaccine solution is, but I think it's people boldly admitting they're okay if people die, who cares.
posted by Kitteh
I think for some it’s that, but for an equal number it’s “if I close my eyes and stick my fingers in my ears the virus won’t know I’m there.” That’s the level of sophistication I’m seeing.
I live in a low vax region of a province that actually has high vax rates overall. It is so bad here that although we have less than 25% of the population of Vancouver’s health care region, we’ve had more cases for the last couple of months. Not just cases per capita (though we also have the highest cases per capita in the province). More cases, period.
As a result, our overloaded hospitals have had to medevac patients to the other hospitals in the province, which I’m sure has thrilled the medical staff and people who live there. Because not only do our low vax rates affect people in our region who need medical care, they’re now affecting people all over the province! Now it’s not just people here who are praying we don’t get in an accident or need a cancer operation, because a bunch of jerks chose not to get vaccinated and now there aren’t any available beds. We’re spreading that joy all over the province, too.
The provincial government’s reaction has been to reimplement stricter COVID measures in my region, while slowly easing restrictions in all other regions. As much as it’s no fun to be in the only region with such heavy restrictions, I fully applaud the government for doing that. People here are super mad over it, to which I say, if you don’t want to be treated like babies then stop acting like babies: get vaccinated, mask up, and stop spreading COVID!
So while I’m really happy that the vaccine for 5-11 year olds is about to be approved in Canada, I have no faith that the vaccine holdouts where I live are going to get their kids vaccinated. Those poor unvaxxed kids are going to keep getting COVID (it has been going through the daycares and elementary schools like wildfire since September) with who knows what long term effects to their own health, and they’re going to continue to spread it to their moms and dads and grandparents and other people, even vaccinated people.
So to conclude my TED talk, I really wouldn’t recommend dropping masking and physical distancing restrictions until regions see actual uptake of the kids’ vaccines. And I fear where I live, that’ll be a long time coming.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 1:15 PM on October 30, 2021 [17 favorites]
posted by Kitteh
I think for some it’s that, but for an equal number it’s “if I close my eyes and stick my fingers in my ears the virus won’t know I’m there.” That’s the level of sophistication I’m seeing.
I live in a low vax region of a province that actually has high vax rates overall. It is so bad here that although we have less than 25% of the population of Vancouver’s health care region, we’ve had more cases for the last couple of months. Not just cases per capita (though we also have the highest cases per capita in the province). More cases, period.
As a result, our overloaded hospitals have had to medevac patients to the other hospitals in the province, which I’m sure has thrilled the medical staff and people who live there. Because not only do our low vax rates affect people in our region who need medical care, they’re now affecting people all over the province! Now it’s not just people here who are praying we don’t get in an accident or need a cancer operation, because a bunch of jerks chose not to get vaccinated and now there aren’t any available beds. We’re spreading that joy all over the province, too.
The provincial government’s reaction has been to reimplement stricter COVID measures in my region, while slowly easing restrictions in all other regions. As much as it’s no fun to be in the only region with such heavy restrictions, I fully applaud the government for doing that. People here are super mad over it, to which I say, if you don’t want to be treated like babies then stop acting like babies: get vaccinated, mask up, and stop spreading COVID!
So while I’m really happy that the vaccine for 5-11 year olds is about to be approved in Canada, I have no faith that the vaccine holdouts where I live are going to get their kids vaccinated. Those poor unvaxxed kids are going to keep getting COVID (it has been going through the daycares and elementary schools like wildfire since September) with who knows what long term effects to their own health, and they’re going to continue to spread it to their moms and dads and grandparents and other people, even vaccinated people.
So to conclude my TED talk, I really wouldn’t recommend dropping masking and physical distancing restrictions until regions see actual uptake of the kids’ vaccines. And I fear where I live, that’ll be a long time coming.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 1:15 PM on October 30, 2021 [17 favorites]
This drum is awfully banged, I know, but still worth repeating, children with complex medical needs deserve to go to school and they need other children to get the vax to be safe.
posted by nakedmolerats at 1:28 PM on October 30, 2021 [32 favorites]
posted by nakedmolerats at 1:28 PM on October 30, 2021 [32 favorites]
All three of my children (two in the older group and one in the younger one) are in the Pfizer study. We're extremely excited for the older to be able to have their treatment/control status revealed so they can get vaccinated if they are in the control arm.
I'll say I am extremely tired about attempts to minimize potential risk to children (and the adults around them) around an extremely safe vaccine. Or trying to push to end fairly non-obnoxious safety measures. They'll end naturally as enough people in a community agree to end them
I know multiple people who were vaxxed who got covid from their un-vaxxed kids and had fairly bad (although not medical "servre" cases, like weeks long loss of smell). Thay will happen less as more people get vaccinated and more people have booster shots ala flu.
I had hoped that this thread (opposed to some other internet communities I'm a part of for other reasons) would have been a higher percentage of positiveness for us to be happy about the amazing developments and maybe thinking about how to help the world more. Alas.
Still great looks and looking forward to the final CDC announcement next week.
posted by skynxnex at 2:15 PM on October 30, 2021 [8 favorites]
I'll say I am extremely tired about attempts to minimize potential risk to children (and the adults around them) around an extremely safe vaccine. Or trying to push to end fairly non-obnoxious safety measures. They'll end naturally as enough people in a community agree to end them
I know multiple people who were vaxxed who got covid from their un-vaxxed kids and had fairly bad (although not medical "servre" cases, like weeks long loss of smell). Thay will happen less as more people get vaccinated and more people have booster shots ala flu.
I had hoped that this thread (opposed to some other internet communities I'm a part of for other reasons) would have been a higher percentage of positiveness for us to be happy about the amazing developments and maybe thinking about how to help the world more. Alas.
Still great looks and looking forward to the final CDC announcement next week.
posted by skynxnex at 2:15 PM on October 30, 2021 [8 favorites]
So far as I can tell, all metrics are indicating the USA has overcome COVID.
Here in my state- Alaska- it is not over or even close because of unvaccinated idiots. There are no statewide vaccine or mask mandates and the recent Anchorage city mask mandate is not enforced. Our state is suing the federal government over vaccine mandates. We have plateaued at a peak higher than any kind of case counts we saw before this fall.
My husband works in a small rural hospital. Today, he was very worried about storm-caused power outages in the small town taking out the oxygen concentrators he sent covid patients home with. They do not have room for those patients at the small hospital and no one in the state is taking transfers. It is not over.
I teach 11-13 year olds and we have no mitigation plan in place at my public school besides masks- honestly feeling lucky for that given the political climate- and crossed fingers. Fully 1/4 of my kids have gotten covid *since school started in August.* Many of those students could have been vaccinated but aren’t, but quite a few of my 11 year olds have been desperate to be vaccinated and have gotten sick in the gap. It is not over but this would sure have helped those kids.
I’m thrilled for this and for anything else that helps stop community spread.
posted by charmedimsure at 6:33 PM on October 30, 2021 [18 favorites]
Here in my state- Alaska- it is not over or even close because of unvaccinated idiots. There are no statewide vaccine or mask mandates and the recent Anchorage city mask mandate is not enforced. Our state is suing the federal government over vaccine mandates. We have plateaued at a peak higher than any kind of case counts we saw before this fall.
My husband works in a small rural hospital. Today, he was very worried about storm-caused power outages in the small town taking out the oxygen concentrators he sent covid patients home with. They do not have room for those patients at the small hospital and no one in the state is taking transfers. It is not over.
I teach 11-13 year olds and we have no mitigation plan in place at my public school besides masks- honestly feeling lucky for that given the political climate- and crossed fingers. Fully 1/4 of my kids have gotten covid *since school started in August.* Many of those students could have been vaccinated but aren’t, but quite a few of my 11 year olds have been desperate to be vaccinated and have gotten sick in the gap. It is not over but this would sure have helped those kids.
I’m thrilled for this and for anything else that helps stop community spread.
posted by charmedimsure at 6:33 PM on October 30, 2021 [18 favorites]
BBC article about risks to kids - myocarditis, higher with boys than girls, increases with 2nd dose, still very low. But we have some family history. I will wait 4-6w for volume data to come in and then get my kid vaxxed.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 10:18 AM on October 31, 2021
posted by St. Peepsburg at 10:18 AM on October 31, 2021
Why do they use the word "jabbing" so much instead of "vaccination?" It makes a lifesaving medical procedure sound violent.
posted by tiny frying pan at 10:21 AM on October 31, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by tiny frying pan at 10:21 AM on October 31, 2021 [3 favorites]
All the data we have show that it is far far safer for all human beings to get vaccinated than to get COVID.
From that same BBC article:
From that same BBC article:
A recent US study suggests having Covid-19 could be six times more likely to trigger myocarditis in young men than the vaccine, with a rate of about 450 per million infections.posted by hydropsyche at 10:50 AM on October 31, 2021 [7 favorites]
If my kids were less than say 10 which I admit is somewhat arbitrary, I am not sure I would get them vaccinated. Of course, my ex would have as big a say, but left to me, I know I would struggle with the decision. I am in my late 50's. I am really too old to worry about the long-term affects to me.
every day I live it hits me a little harder how lucky I was to have been raised by a mother whose idea of morality wasn't Do what harm you want to anyone you like, as long as it isn't yourself or me, the ones who matter.
but if you do have such a narrow focus then the only problem, and it's a big one, with putting My Child's Health above all other child and adult lives, is that respect for their parents is part of moral health in children. in the same way that affection for their parents is part of emotional health. and so depriving your hypothetical young children of the ability to respect you is not a wonderful thing to do for them. even if, especially if, you can truthfully argue that you only (hypothetically) would have acted shamefully because you were putting your idea of their interests above everything in the whole wide world.
posted by queenofbithynia at 7:49 PM on October 31, 2021 [11 favorites]
every day I live it hits me a little harder how lucky I was to have been raised by a mother whose idea of morality wasn't Do what harm you want to anyone you like, as long as it isn't yourself or me, the ones who matter.
but if you do have such a narrow focus then the only problem, and it's a big one, with putting My Child's Health above all other child and adult lives, is that respect for their parents is part of moral health in children. in the same way that affection for their parents is part of emotional health. and so depriving your hypothetical young children of the ability to respect you is not a wonderful thing to do for them. even if, especially if, you can truthfully argue that you only (hypothetically) would have acted shamefully because you were putting your idea of their interests above everything in the whole wide world.
posted by queenofbithynia at 7:49 PM on October 31, 2021 [11 favorites]
So far as I can tell, all metrics are indicating the USA has overcome COVID
Not even close. Numbers nationwide are still quite a bit higher than they were in July. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/national/coronavirus-us-cases-deaths/?no_nav=true
posted by aspersioncast at 5:32 PM on November 1, 2021 [2 favorites]
Not even close. Numbers nationwide are still quite a bit higher than they were in July. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/national/coronavirus-us-cases-deaths/?no_nav=true
posted by aspersioncast at 5:32 PM on November 1, 2021 [2 favorites]
Why do they use the word "jabbing" so much instead of "vaccination?" It makes a lifesaving medical procedure sound violent.
I agree, as a needle-phobic person oh boy do I agree. But it's the standard phrasing in the UK. Honestly getting a "shot" isn't much better though.
posted by Glier's Goetta at 4:28 AM on November 2, 2021
I agree, as a needle-phobic person oh boy do I agree. But it's the standard phrasing in the UK. Honestly getting a "shot" isn't much better though.
posted by Glier's Goetta at 4:28 AM on November 2, 2021
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posted by Countess Elena at 12:52 PM on October 29, 2021 [12 favorites]