Forget long-term effects. One only needs to point out that more kids had "severe" reactions to the vaccine (>2%) than had Covid in the trial (1.6%). This approval was based on a tiny sample (1100 kids) over 2 months.

https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavi...

(Edit - side-effect data starts on page 25 here: https://www.fda.gov/media/144413/download)

There are legitimate reasons to question the rapid approval of this vaccine in children. It's certainly not something worth mocking. And I say that as someone who is fully vaccinated.

Again, the severe reactions documented here are not all that bad.

OK so if you take into account almost any transmission rate we've seen that seems like it easily balances out, even not taking into account potential for mutations and the classification of severe.

I have a "severe" reaction to alcohol every time I drink too much.

Vaccination of children is not required to reduce the number of deaths from Covid-19 to a number asymptotically approaching zero.

Focusing myopically on "transmission rate" misses the broader conversation about risk and benefit. Giving tens/hundreds of thousands of kids an illness on par with the flu to marginally reduce the theoretical risk of illness in an unvaccinated stranger...this is a choice that can be made, but I think it's a tougher decision than you do.

> Vaccination of children is not required to reduce the number of deaths from Covid-19 to a number asymptotically approaching zero.

> Focusing myopically on "transmission rate" misses the broader conversation about risk and benefit.

So does focussing myopically on deaths, which aren’t the only thing that costs Quality-Adjusted Life-Years.

> Giving tens/hundreds of thousands of kids an illness on par with the flu to marginally reduce the theoretical risk of illness in an unvaccinated stranger.

That’s not all the vaccine is for. Children have a much lower rate of dying of acute COVID symptoms, but do see more than enough long COVID effects, including MIS-C, to be worth protecting against.

> So does focussing myopically on deaths, which aren’t the only thing that costs Quality-Adjusted Life-Years.

Now you're just fear-mongering.

> Children have a much lower rate of dying of acute COVID symptoms, but do see more than enough long COVID effects, including MIS-C, to be worth protecting against.

There have been 3200 cases of MIS-C in the US. 36 have died.

https://www.cdc.gov/mis-c/cases/index.html

The rate of MIS-C is exceptionally low -- possibly lower than the rate of severe adverse events for the vaccine itself: "Overall, MIS-C is a rare complication of SARS-CoV-2. A May 2020 systematic review from 26 countries reported a MIS-C incidence of 0.14% among all children with SARS-CoV-2 infection"

https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n385

Give this vaccine to 1M children, and at a rate of 0.4% serious adverse (i.e. life-threatening) reactions, you would expect 4000. An unknowable portion of those will die. Moreover, there will be 20,000 reactions severe enough to put a child out of school for a few days. There are about 25M kids age 12-17 in the US.

Your sense of risk is seriously miscalibrated.

A serious adverse event doesn't have to be life threatening.[1] The difference between groups wasn't statistically significant. And there was no pattern either.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27114261

The definition:

"Serious adverse events are defined as: • Death; • A life-threatening adverse event; • Inpatient hospitalization or prolongation of existing hospitalization; • A persistent or significant incapacity or substantial disruption of the ability to conduct normal life functions; • A congenital anomaly/birth defect; • An important medical event that based on appropriate medical judgement may jeopardize the individual and may require medical or surgical intervention to prevent one of the outcomes listed above."

So 4 out of the 6 criteria are, in fact, life-threatening, one is "your life is permanently altered, sorry", and the final one is irrelevant.

(and no, despite your link to the other thread, "persistent or significant incapacity" does not include "a sick day")

> And there was no pattern either.

They didn't release the raw data, so there's no way for you to know that.

>"persistent or significant incapacity" does not include "a sick day"

It does, actually. From the UI Medcom link: "symptoms that preclude patient from attending work, school or perform their typical daily activities"

I gave you the definition, from the approval document itself. This is the definitive answer, not some unrelated article about VAERS.

https://www.fda.gov/media/144413/download

The question is what substantial means. I believe hvac's credible source over your forceful assertion.

Serious adverse events have to be reported to VAERS. I think the FDA would notice if Pfizer lied about there being no pattern.

I quoted directly from the approval document on the FDA website. The other poster is linking to some unrelated thing about VAERS.

https://www.fda.gov/media/144413/download

You quoted the part of the fact sheet about reporting serious adverse events to VAERS. The University of Iowa page is about the same thing exactly. They quoted the same definition. The only differences were they abbreviated adverse event and gave examples.

"A persistent or significant incapacity or substantial disruption of the ability to conduct normal life functions; e.g. symptoms that preclude patient from attending work, school or perform their typical daily activities"

Yeah no one is forcing them, so what’s your point?

Vaccination of children wouldn’t be needed if most adults got it. But they don’t because they’re dumb. So now they’re saying children can get it if they’re parents want. It’s a choice to do your part to reduce the spread. Pretty simple.

> But they don’t because they’re dumb

Given that some of the the lowest vaccination uptake rates are in black and latino communities who have historically strained relationships with the medical system -- as well as some of the highest prior infection rates -- your comment is misinformed.

Whatever the current level of immunity may be, cases, hospitalizations and deaths are all rapidly declining across the US. Moreover, the vaccines are all close to 100% effective at preventing severe illness. There are a great many reasons to be optimistic about our current trajectory, and no immediate need to put children at risk to get where we need to go.

Vaccine refusal is more partisan than racial.[1]

[1] https://poll.qu.edu/images/polling/us/us04142021_uscd43.pdf#...

The numbers you're citing say that 19% of black and 30% of hispanic people surveyed don't plan to get vaccinated. The equivalent number is 24% for white people.

Moreover, empirical reality differs from polling. In New York City, for example (a big, liberal, multi-ethnic city), Latino people lag whites by 12% in vaccination rate; black people lag by 17%:

https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data-vaccines.p...

Whatever people are telling pollsters, it differs from their actions. Maybe they have "plans" to get vaccinated, but they're not doing it right now.

I didn't say not racial at all. I said more partisan. 45% of 1 major party. 7% of the other. Independents in between.

A different poll said Hispanic people are the most inclined to get vaccinated. But politics was the strongest correlation still.[1]

Cumulative vaccination rates reflect earlier hesitation. Also scheduling difficulties, transportation difficulties, and wanting to get vaccinated by a trusted provider.[2] But targeted efforts have closed or nearly closed the gaps in many places.[3]

[1] https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trust-johnson-johnsons-coron...

[2] https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/04/26/9899620...

[3] https://covid19.ncdhhs.gov/media/2388/open

> more kids had "severe" reactions to the vaccine (>2%)

Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but where are you seeing this in the news release?

Sorry, It starts on page 25 here:

https://www.fda.gov/media/144413/download

we have year old results for Covid too.

Mayo Clinic has an article about COVID's long term effects

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/i...

do you know if they break these long term affects into age groups or other demographics?

Yeah exactly my point lol. So the 5-10-15 year impact of both is unknown. Thus it’s a mute point of consideration for a logical person.

Getting the virus and entering the risk pool for long term affects has a probability below 100%. Maybe you never get the virus. Choosing to get the vaccine gives you 100% chance of getting in the risk pool for its side affects. The third category is you already had the virus without long term issues, but getting the vaccine introduces new risks (allergies is the obvious easy one).

I don't know the compounded statistics here and I don't claim to know the "right choice" for everyone, including myself. In general, I never get the latest update in software. I never get the first model years in cars. Without a case of urgency, this seems like a good path forward for this too, but YMMV.

The P.1 variant is extremely contagious, with an unmitigated R somewhere in the range of 6-12. That's close to Measles. Unless a very large percentage of the population gets vaccinated, it's essentially inevitable for the unvaccinated to be infected at some point, as well as a small portion of the vaccinated population.

Your choices are either get vaccinated, get COVID (and possibly transmit it), or take extreme precautions indefinitely. Unless you have reason to believe that the vaccine is more dangerous than COVID, and you're not willing to live your life as a shut-in or wear a respirator for the rest of your life, you might as well get vaccinated.

“Maybe not getting the virus” is mostly because your fellow citizens got vaccinated.

If everybody followed your logic, everybody would’ve had covid by now.

Of course we know that there are some healthy under 40’s that died from covid. If they got the vaccine, would they have died?

How many have died directly from the vaccine?

Answer those last two and you will see.

But why would you expect long side effect of an immunity triggering vaccine?

I don't personally have any expectations. I strongly suspect that there are not any long term affects. I am not familiar with mRNA tech in general, nor am I familiar with the various vaccine vectors. I do have a vivid imagination though.

None of this is real - just "science fiction". 1) the mRNA triggers latent gene expression which causes some form of cancer. 2) the mRNA causes some new slow protein generation which accumulates in the blood like cholesterol and has long term health affects.

is this possible? probably as possible as buying a winning lottery ticket and being struck by lightning at the exact same time!

moot, not mute

I think that was the point

Yea we mostly do. Covid behaves like other similar viruses. Every side effect the media has portrayed about this virus like it's the only virus that has these effects exists in other viruses.

So you mostly do, but not completely.

We mostly know this vaccine is fine, since it completely leaves the body in a few days anyway… but not completely.

Same thing, mute point in consideration.