Why COVID-19 Vaccines Should Not Be Required for All Americans https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/why-covid-19-vacci...
> Dr. Marty Makary, a professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and editor in chief of MedPage Today, argues that mandating vaccines for "every living, walking American" is, as of now, not well-supported by science. ... The risk of hospitalization from COVID-19 in kids ages 5 to 17 is 0.3 per million for the week ending July 24, 2021, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We also know that the risk of hospitalization after the second vaccine dose due to myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart muscle, is about 50 per million in that same age group.
As to vaccinating children more generally and assessing known risks, there is no simple answer. What are the risk levels for different age groups? What is the damage to kids if they pass COVID onto their parents or grandparents and they die? I'm not saying that we should just blanket give it to everyone, but I don't think that one stat is enough to say don't give it to any child, or that no mandate could be justified.
[1] https://twitter.com/dril/status/464802196060917762?lang=en
Besides, if you're so smart, and it's so obvious, why do you think you're smart enough to state that Sweden, a modern country, is objectively wrong for banning mRNA vaccines for children?
In any case, my primary point was that it should be up to parents if they give their kids this vaccine, and when. Not the government mandating it.
We know the degree of risk from vaccines is low, both in the short and long term. The side effects harm few people, and are not catastrophic.
With viruses, we know that side effects in the long term are real, and can be catastrophic. It is the reason that girl are vaccinated against HPV - HPV is the leading cause of cervical cancer. This is a very big problem down the line, even though HPV itself is mostly asymptomatic.
So, it does not follow that avoiding Covid vaccine for children because the immediate likelihood of death from acute covid is the only issue. We are aware that the long term risk of viral infection can be very great with viruses. Avoiding infection is much better if the alternative is the possibility of cancer.
I never said it was the only issue. But neither is the only choice to give your kids the current approved vaccines ASAP or never give the vaccine to them ever.
Avoiding infection is much better if the alternative is the possibility of cancer. But of course, we don't know or plausibly think something like cancer is a long term risk of a COVID infection in children. Maybe one day we will realize such outcomes happen and then it would become much more sane to rush your kids to get the vaccine that day.
I think it's important to stick to what we know, about this virus, and these vaccines: we know that it is extremely rare for children to be hospitalized from COVID, and we know that it is extremely rare for diagnosed myocarditis. But what we also know is that as time goes on, we learn more. And especially for things where are very new, like using these vaccines have on children, we stand to learn a lot, quickly. So I think it's a bad frame to presume parents are pro- or anti- vax. Hesitancy is sane on this specific issue, and that's not to mean that other positions are insane, but what is insane is to impose this on parents who are hesitant at this present time, until we understand what, exactly, is going on with heart tissue.
Even if we completely ignore that some children do in fact die (being rare doesn't stop it being terrible when it happens and worth avoiding), and that even if they don't, suffering while ill is bad: when we are talking about risks of completely unknown side effects, the side effect risk of the vaccine is obviously lower than the side effect risk of COVID itself.
The vaccine is relatively simple thing specifically designed to do one task. While there is always a chance there is something we didn't understand or see coming, the chance of a virus, a hugely complex and mutating thing with broad and varied effects, having some long-term side-effect is far, far higher.