Why Children Become Seriously Ill From the Coronavirus

Shots for the kids are just coming to market. Would you rather your child becomes seriously ill by not getting one for yours?

From here: New Findings on 2 Ways Children Become Seriously Ill From the Coronavirus

 

This sounds very much like a press release from Fauci's office. Frighten people and they will act emotionally.

 

You go on Ignore for "one liner idiot-commentary" ...

 

Indeed.

Over a 1000 young children have a serious long term covid infection.

Its great that medical authorities including Dr. Fauci studying serious illnesses with children.

Great find, guys!

 

Stay frightened folks, over a virus with a 99% chance of survival.

Stay scared silly--it greatly diminishes your rational skills.

 

Yeah!

Only 1 out of a hundred children die! The 5% or more with serious illness sometimes permanant deficuts like heart illness.

And who cares kids might lose things like their sense of smell and taste. Those senses are useless anyway and contribute to weight problems, gluttony, and depression.

 

Now now, you would think these supporters believed in family values!!!!LOL!

 

I would like to see data supporting your claim the infection fatality rate (or mortality rate or case fatality rate if you prefer) for SARS-CoV-2 infection is 1% in children.

 

Just look at even the anti-vax people say the survival rate of 99%, which means 1% die!

And however death and seriously ill rate, cutting that by more than 90% with vaccine.

 

Can’t find the data to support your claim? Well, the actual case fatality rate of Covid for children is about 0.01%. So you were only 100 times high in your claim. LOL

Why would I care what anti vaxxers say in context of our exchange? I asked you to support your claim, not give me some claim from someone else. Are you an anti vaxxer or something?

At some point honest folk will have to admit more kids died of Covid mitigation induced suicide than died from Covid.

Sure, the efficacy of the vaccines is great—better than we expected. Doesn’t give you license to make false claims.

Bet you didn’t realize the majority of child Covid deaths were in children with diet related (overeating and simple carbohydrate consumption) comorbidities did you? Kind of makes this statement of yours a real head scratcher.

If you want to be taken more seriously than anti vaxxers, I suggest you not post content as factually incorrect as they do.

 

Yes, today's "family values" in the US of A include having one's children injected with toxic experimental drugs to make Pharma more profitable.

 

In a world with inadequate supplies of Covid vaccines, giving them to healthy children instead of at risk adults in underdeveloped countries seems like a waste of resources.
Perhaps they should only be administered to children with comorbidities.

 

They are not vaccines.

Children do just fine, thank you.

The Covid Inquisition is a scam, a planned event.

The meek may inherit the earth, but the gullible don't know when they've been fooled.

 

My sarcastic comment over the 1% was is from repeated and very generic fatality rates.

Of course the young have less fatalities than old, although the problem for young people is other problems from COVID infection, which seems to be of little concern to statements like yours.

5% or 2% or 1% (the anti-vax comments above) or .1% or .01%, getting sick of with COVID is bad for children whether from the direct infections and/or its negative effects for infections to other who may be more vulnerable, young or old or in less than perfect health or other sudden illness or accident that leave infections like pneumonia.

I would be thrilled of kids could have perfect health and availability education and support to maybe minimize infectious diseases and vulnerabilities, but that doesn't happen (although it is only children have an excuse!).

 

In what world do "children do just fine, thank you"???

Thinking like this is the true scam against children and the world.

 

Yes, the effect of Covid on children is way down on my list of things that harm children. It hurts my heart to see people like you groan and moan about Covid messing up kids while you make light of obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and a host of other conditions that are mostly completely preventable that will kill orders of magnitude more of these kids than Covid.

These same preventable health conditions also make vaccination of these affected individuals less effective.

As I mentioned, not only do you guys not care about lifestyle disease in children you don’t care about suicide either. Most hospitals and clinics report a doubling of suicide attempts in children during the pandemic. This translates into thousands of deaths and many more thousands of individuals with permanent mental health consequences.

But all anyone cares about is mocking parents who are reluctant to vaccinate their children. There is no call to remove children from parents who don’t feed their kids or who ruin their kid’s health for LIFE by feeding them incorrectly. We are talking MILLIONS of cases here. But every day now on PF I see some authoritarian wanting to take kids from parents who aren’t sure vaccination is best for their kids. It’s not only bizarre, it’s sick and frankly frightening that we have people willing to use violence against people based on pure emotion without any basis in fact or logic for resorting to such violence.

I started advocating for complete honesty and rationality in advocacy for vaccination back in August of 2020. Pointing out if vaccination of the most people possible was the goal, false information and ad hominem fallacious argument was not the correct path for advocates to take. Well, so much for that idea. That’s about all I see from advocates now.

Every time someone is mocked, threatened, and provided mis/disinformation about vaccines, the total pool of individuals open to vaccination decreases. Period. Is that what you want?

Finally, every time I hear some obese, type 2 diabetic, or alcohol induced liver diseased adult tell someone else they need to be vaccinated to protect the vulnerable it makes me sick. We have people that won’t change their own destructive behaviors crying because someone else isn’t keen on protecting them. Again, it’s a complete fail of logic and demonstrates none of this is really about health or safety for some people. And like you say, these are adults that choose every day things that positively or negatively affect health and safety. As you say, at least kids can’t be blamed directly. Again, the blame goes to adults.

 

I am aware of the mental health issues happening with children and seniors forced into isolation but was unaware of the comorbidities in child deaths. I've been especially concerned about this because my children are still on remote learning and I have elderly parents (one that already has a heart condition and the other one has cancer).

Have you heard anything about long-term complications (ie. heart damage, other organ damage, etc.). as has been seen in some adults that survived infection?

I'm also curious if those issues present in vaccinated people that become infected or does the vaccine help in that regard?

I'm going to look around to see what I can find.

 

Yes, actually 75% of child deaths have been in minority racial populations and based on comorbidities associated with those races. It’s very sad.

Yes there were some early studies showing myocarditis at pretty high rates. But as it was mostly inflammation it’s hard to say what the consequences will actually be. Based on the history of silent heart attacks and heart damage from influenza (that we’ve been misled about for decades) we would expect subclinical damage. I’ll try and find the study later.

Again, based on what we know about vaccines and influenza we would expect these vaccines to help. Of course we have to account for the rare damage to hearts FROM vaccines we’ve discussed before. But those cases would be statistically insignificant in relation to benefits.

Found the one study I’m familiar with.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamacardiology/fullarticle/2768916

 

Thinking like that is the reality of the situation. Children are at extremely low risk from the virus.

Children are being maimed and killed by the injection that YOU defend. Talk about not knowing right from wrong.

 

NEW REALITY IN WHICH WE LIVE

Incredibly stoopid that remark in red above!

A kid who gets the covid-bug (from his parents or the out-of-home world) deserves to have it? Because he never should have got it? BadBoy! BadBoy!

Giving anti-Covid shots to the kids is "preventive medicine" and as human-beings they have a right-to-life no less than adults! Which is a rule of which you seem highly ignorant!

Like most who don't understand the arch-complexity of what has happened to humanity, you churn out useless drivel about who should get the shot and who not and when! Bitching-'n-moaning about Covid-vaccines (and how they are administrated) is useless babble. Like most life-experiences, we live them and learn. Which means what in terms of "key-thinking"?

THIS: That as regards, killer-infections we must at first be preventive and only later curative. Because, unlike the common-cold, killer-sepsis is an entity that must first be discovered and only-then a remedy be prepared and manufactured in high-volumes. All of which takes an enormous period of time. And not just in one day!

Which effectively also means this:
*On Dec. 31, 2019, Chinese authorities alerted the World Health Organization of pneumonia cases in Wuhan City, Hubei province, China, with an unknown cause. What started as a mystery disease was first referred to as 2019-nCoV and then named COVID-19.
*Oct 22, 2020 — FDA approved the antiviral drug Veklury (remdesivir) for adults and pediatric patients that then proved ineffective.

Those dates above are indicative of the time necessary to react to a dangerous-epidemic. And that 10-month delay to produce an effective antidote is likely to get only slightly better ... over time!

Welcome to the new-reality in which we live ....!

 

I think your wokeness is distracting you from the intent of the question posed by MJ Davies. What's the rate for that specific age group? 0.02% if they get infected of percentage that even gets infected? What is it?

 

THE RISK OF COVID IN CHILDREN

From here: Covid-19: Should all children get a vaccine?

Excerpt:

As a parent, I would assume the very-low-risk and get my children injected. Just in case. What's the "cost"? Here in Europe, nothing, as we are protected by National Health-Care systems ...

 

I don't debate on such a "mixed" forum as this one the subject of Who Said What To Whom And Why?

Debate must remain impersonal. Stick to the factual-evidence in an exchange and let's forget the "who-said-what-to-whom-and-why?" ...

 

As some of you may know, I've decided to mostly walk away from Covid-19 discussions. It's not excluded, though, that I'll voluntarily and briefly break my own personal rule when I see a well-reasoned thread with interesting posts and posters, as is the case here, as opposed to frustrating and irritating misinformation (either malicious, or just the product of ignorance - at one point such threads irritated me so much and I was experiencing so much professional and personal burn-out that I decided to walk away).

This thread has good posts and good questions by good posters such as @557 @MJ Davies @LafayetteBis @fiddlerdave @Montegriffo and others, so it will be my pleasure to contribute.

This is a fascinating topic. Should we vaccinate our children against Covid-19? To get to a rational answer we'd need to first answer these questions: 1)What is the risk/benefit balance? 2)If we do it, why should we do it? 3)Should it be mandatory? 4)Should we blame hesitant parents? I'll try to issue my opinions on these.

1-Risk/Benefit

According to the CDC (United States data):

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/201...s-discovery/hospitalization-death-by-age.html

The risk of death for Covid-19 in children aged 0-17 is small. Both the 0-4 and the 5-17 groups have a death risk 10x smaller than the 18-29, 45x smaller than the 30-39, 130x smaller than the 40-49, 440x smaller than the 50-64, 1,300x smaller than the 65-74, 3,200x smaller than the 75-84, and 8,700x smaller than the 85+ age group.

The 0-4 group has a hospitalization rate 2x bigger than the 5-17 group but has the same death risk.

Do observe that while the risk of infection for the 0-4 group is smaller than any other group, the risk for the 5-17 group is similar to other groups or not smaller than 2x smaller than some other groups. That is, overall the 5-17 group catches Covid-19 about at similar rates to other age groups.

OK, let's look at this number, 45% smaller than 30-39, a group we have comparisons for, in 4 countries. Rate of death for this group is 0.11% in South Korea, 0.14% in Spain, 0.2% in China, and 0.3% in Italy. So, the average is almost 0.2%. This, divided by 45 = 0.0045%. Sure, I'm comparing data from different countries to US data, but that's OK, we don't need to be 100% accurate to get to a general idea of the risks and benefits.

https://ourworldindata.org/mortality-risk-covid

All right, so by these solid indicators based on large populational studies, we have established that the risk of death for children 0-19 is less than (or about half of) of 0.01%.

OK, so what is the benefit for the vaccine, in children? The efficacy in the 12-17 age group so far has been 100%. The vaccine is more efficacious for children than for adults. So the vaccine would wipe out these 0.01% or 0.005% deaths.

What is the risk for children, of being vaccinated? That I know, there hasn't been a single case of death reported in children related to Covid-19 vaccines, anywhere in the world. I may be wrong of course as I'm saying "that I know" and maybe there is a report here and there that I'm not aware of. But the limited data I've seen, with trials and real-life vaccination of older children, so far has shown no risk. Younger children haven't been looked at, yet. It's too recent, though.

In adults, we know that the risk of serious complication from the vaccines has been around 0.0008% and the risk of death, around 0.0002%. I won't add a reference to this, but will simply refer readers to my posting history where at some point I did show these calculations and links to back them up.

OK, so the risk of death for children from being vaccinated seems to be smaller than the risk of Covid-19 death for them. This risk from the vaccine could be as small as zero for children, or if when more children get vaccinated and the risks ultimately were to match the adults' of 0.0002%, this is still better than 0.01% or 0.005% from the virus.

It appears like we have the answer for question #1: The benefit of Covid-19 vaccination for children, at this point (limited data) appears to be bigger than the risk.

Now, what's the size of this benefit? Small. Assuming 100% efficacy and a 0.01% risk of death from Covid, in terms of Number Needed to Treat, you'd have to vaccinate 10,000 children to save 1 from death by Covid-19. This doubles to 20,000 children if you use the 0.005% rate, for your calculation.

2-If we do it, why should we do it?

For one thing, the parents of that saved children out of 10,000 or 20,000 would be grateful, but still, while the benefit outweighs the risk, the benefit is small, considering the standpoint of the child.

On the other hand, like I showed before, the rate of infection in children is similar to adults. So the benefit of vaccinating children would be larger if we consider the populational standpoint, in terms of contribution to herd immunity and barrier to the spread of the virus.

This alone could justify vaccination: something that benefits the population at large, benefits a few children (1 in 10,000 or 20,000 but still, outweighing risks), and has pretty much negligible risks. From the standpoint of public health, it's justified.

3-Should it be mandatory?

As I said many times, I'm not for mandatory measures. I will always believe that educational campaigns are better than mandates in the cultural context of the United States (we are a rebellious bunch; we don't like governmental mandates over our lives). I will always believe that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.

This said, in the particular age group of children, mandatory vaccinations are the rule. You can't enroll a child in school without proof of vaccination. However the vaccines you require for children to enroll in school are not all vaccines known to men that can be given to children, but rather, those that have a very strong benefit/ratio, for children, which as shown above, is not the case for Covid-19 vaccines.

Do notice that conditions such as meningitis and tuberculosis, and even school bus accidents, present a risk of death for children that is bigger than their risk of death by Covid-19. For young children 0-4, the risk of death by influenza is also bigger.

Given the small benefit size of Covid-19 vaccination for children, I'd say, no, it shouldn't be mandatory.

4-Should we blame hesitant parents?

No, we should not. Again, the benefit is small. While the risks are likely negligible and could even be zero, there is still limited data, and by the way none of the vaccines are already fully approved by the FDA. They are beneficiaries of an EUA or Emergency Use Authorization. The standard observation time for delayed side-effects is not over yet. For reasons I've mentioned in other posts, I do believe that mRNA vaccines are unlikely to have delayed side effects (as compared to the viral vector vaccines, which are not as safe). Still, we do have insufficient data at this time, so, no, I would not blame hesitant parents. I do think that hesitant adults are not justified in their hesitancy... but we simply do not have enough data yet to fully understand the benefits/risk ratio for children. For example, it's been shown in a tiny number of adults, heart inflammation from the vaccines. Sure, in MUCH smaller numbers than heart inflammation from the SARS-CoV-2 itself, but still, it's an example of some risks that need to be better understood.

When the virus itself presents a strong risk like it does for older groups, that's a no-brainer: adults need the vaccine. But when the risk is very small, it's OK to wait for more data, so, no, hesitant parents shouldn't be blamed.

This said, both my children are vaccinated, and while they are grown children, if they were still small, I'd vaccinate them too, no hesitancy.

-------------

Now that I've answered these four questions, let's go back to the larger one: should we vaccinate our children against Covid-19?

Just based on the above, we'd have to say, yes, but not via a mandate, and no blame is to be assigned to hesitant parents. But it's a "barely yes" based more on populational risk (contribution to herd immunity; prevention of children being vectors for infection) than individual risk.

However there are four other aspects I haven't addressed yet, that would result in a stronger yes.

A) All the calculations above were done using death rate. We haven't included sequelae, morbidity, and non-fatal complications from Covid-19, which while non-fatal, could still cause damage, and be costly.

MISC-C (which was appropriately mentioned here): It's very rarely fatal, but a bunch of these kids end up in ICUs. They survive and get discharged from the ICU but that's a lot of trauma, stress, and costs that could have been avoided with a simple and free jab.

The SARS-CoV-2 has the ability to damage the endothelium of vessels, and to cause direct damage to organs such as the heart, the kidney, the lungs, and the brain. How often does this occur in children? Unknown, but personally speaking, I wouldn't want to expose my children to this risk. Even the damage to the smell/taste senses while non-fatal, curtails quality of life. And if more serious organ damage occur, this would curtail quality of life, life expectancy, and would have a societal cost in burden of treatment-related costs and lost productivity. Again, a simple and free jab would avoid that.

B) Children grow. They get into older age groups, with time. This virus is likely to become endemic. We don't know how long the immunity from the vaccines last, but especially in children, their immune system is robust when compared to seniors. Memory cells could very well be still dormant but ready to jump to action. So, the vaccine will prime the child's immune system and make that child presumably more immune-competent to deal with a Covid-19 infection later in life. Do remember that the risk of death jumps 10 times higher for the next age group and 45 times higher for the subsequent one.

C) Viruses are unpredictable in their potential for late harm. I've quoted before the case of the Epstein-Barr virus (mononucleosis). The infection appears to be benign in children. However, decades later, adults who were infected when they were children, present a much bigger risk of serious cancers (lymphomas of various types) and a number of auto-immune diseases. So, given that the SARS-CoV-2 has been with us for just about one year and a half, we do not know what late consequences decades after the initial infection, we may one day detect. This appears to be a very aggressive virus in many ways. I wouldn't mess with it.

D) Variants. It's been strongly suspected that the P1 variant is way more aggressive to children than the ancestral strains, due to a much higher rate of death in young people in Brazil, including babies, once the P1 hit the country. If confirmed and if one such variant were to spread in the United States (which hasn't been the case yet, although the P1 is present here, but it is present in small percentage that isn't getting an expressive foothold, so far), the benefit/risk ratio would change in favor of the benefit, and the benefit size would be bigger.

--------------

All things considered: Yes, we should vaccinate our children. We have an abundant supply of the very efficacious and very safe mRNA vaccines (Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna) and they are free for the population. They seem to have a 100% efficacy rate in children, and to my knowledge, no documented death from the vaccine in this age group. In any case the benefits although small do appear to outweigh the risks (although there is limited data), and while the benefit for an individual child is small regarding death rates, it could be bigger regarding factors A-B-C-D above, and there is of course the advantage of contribution to populational herd immune and blocking the virus from further spreading.

Still, it shouldn't be mandatory. The decision should be left to parents, and they shouldn't be blamed if they hesitate.

Regarding other considerations here about obesity in children, malnutrition, etc., disadvantaged communities, etc., sure, good points, but two wrongs don't make a right. While not addressing these bigger killers is wrong from a societal standpoint, we don't need to add to this wrong, the wrong of not vaccinating children against Covid-19, especially given A-B-C-D above. Of course I'm all for ALSO addressing these problems, but the fact that we haven't been addressing it well shouldn't stop us from acting against the Covid-19 pandemic.

How ethical is it that we would vaccinate a small-risk chunk of our population instead of donating those vaccines to disadvantaged countries where they'd save more lives? Well, that's complicated. United States public health officials have a mandate to protect the health of the people of the United States, so under this idea, the priority is to maximize as much as possible the safety of our people before we look at populations abroad. This is not a weird concept. Remember, in case of cabin depressurization, get your oxygen mask on, before you help your seat neighbor, including because you need to be in good shape to help others. If the United States suffers more in terms of economic impact of this pandemic, we will have less money available for foreign aid anyway. On the other hand, even if we exclusively think of fixing our own problems first and prioritizing the American people first, there is still the matter of other countries becoming the cradle for dangerous variants that could come back to bite us. And there is the humanitarian aspect.

So, it's complex. I don't think I have a definitive answer to that, ethically speaking. But personally and as an American physician, my inclination is to say, let's vaccinate everybody (or as many as we can get to accept the vaccine) here first before we help other countries, but yes, once we do, we should help other countries. We don't need to wait a long time to start helping others (as a matter of fact, we have already started donating) because we know how many people live here, and we do currently have a surplus of vaccines. I'd say, we should reserve for our use as much vaccine as is needed for our population and for a booster shot for our adults, and donate any stock that goes above that number. Vaccines we are not planning to use like the AstraZeneca, we should donate immediately. We've been doing that, already.

 

LOL. That’s the first time I’ve ever been “accused” of wokeness!

The intent of the question was interest in comorbidity in child Covid deaths. I’ve simply pointed out they are the norm—most complications from Covid in children are in children with other health problems. Many of these health problems are the result of lifestyle choices of their parents—before, during, and after gestation. These lifestyle choices unfortunately are more common in certain demographics

I’d be very interested in hearing how pointing this out has anything to do with racism, bigotry, or “wokeness” in any way. It’s sad when any demographic or individual makes choices that harm children.

Oh, I don’t care about the math. I’m not a fan of telling any demographic what to do on vaccination or what they feed their crumb crunchers.