Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Delta does not appear to make children sicker

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 100 posts

Re: Delta does not appear to make children sicker

#81

Post by JumpCrisscross »

adolph wrote: post #66
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Scandinavian countries all have vaccine cards, however, and permit people to discriminate based on whether one has those. The U.S. won’t jail you if you refuse the vaccine. But you have to stay home. This is functionally identical to the Scandinavian solution, minus public buildings and minus a federal vaccine certificate.

Are you saying US and Scandinavia are the same but different? The US won’t jail you unless you disobey?

> US won’t jail you unless you disobey?

They’re the same as in nobody is forced to get the vaccine. Nobody will be threatened with state violence for not getting the shot. They’re just barred from a lot of facilities for the choice they made. We do similarly for children whose parents refuse to give them measles shots.

Enforcement, naturally, varies. In Manhattan, I’m constantly asked for card and ID. In Long Island, it never happened.

Re: Delta does not appear to make children sicker

#82

Post by angelzen »

afavour wrote: post #74
farmerstan wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pfizer vaccine doesn’t prevent infection from delta. Vaccines prevent hospitalization. This is well documented. My friend, a doctor, was just infected by delta this week and she’s vaccinated. Getting kids vaccinated wont prevent other vaccinated kids from being infected. The kids vaccine is 1/3 of the dose of the adult vaccine. And the adult vaccine is known to drop down to 20% efficacy after 4 months. Kids already h…

> Getting kids vaccinated wont prevent other vaccinated kids from being infected. It will. Vaccinated people who get COVID have a lower viral load and less severe symptoms (in particular, coughing, sneezing etc) that would help spread the disease. No, it isn’t 100% but it will help, and it’ll also help stop kids from spreading COVID to more vulnerable people like their grandparents.

This is dangerously misinformed on two counts:

1. Vaccinated people with an infection have similar viral load to unvaccinated people.

> Data from COVID-19 tests in the United States, the United Kingdom and Singapore are showing that vaccinated people who become infected with Delta SARS-CoV-2 can carry as much virus in their nose as do unvaccinated people. This means that despite the protection offered by vaccines, a proportion of vaccinated people can pass on Delta, possibly aiding its rise.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02187-1

2. Lightweight symptoms are good. The #1 pandemic control mechanism is self quarantine on symptom onset. Or perhaps you are one of those people that sends their kid with a running nose to school because it's slightly more convenient?

Re: Delta does not appear to make children sicker

#83

Post by tootie »

LurkingPenguin wrote: post #55
tootie wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It hasn't happened in my kids' schools because they have stringent safety protocols. Mandatory masking, faculty and staff are required to vaccinate and spot testing. They will also shut down at least cohorts of kids to do two weeks of remote learning if there's a confirmed case. This is NYC schools who administer about 1M kids of varying means. A buried story from last year is that nationwide there was exactly 1 conf…

> A buried story from last year is that nationwide there was exactly 1 confirmed child influenza death in the entire country. There was 200 the year before. It speaks to the disease prevention protocols being very effective. Obviously, nobody wants children to die from influenza or COVID, but what are the long-term consequences of young immune systems receiving significantly less exposure to pathogens? https://www.ny…

I find the hygiene hypothesis argument to be unconvincing. The notion that over sterilization leads to weaker immune response is plausible if not settled science. But it certainly seems the long-term outcomes in terms of life expectancy and quality of life come out heavily in favor of the sanitized and vaccinated life. Aside from the immediate benefit of fewer deaths due to acute illness, I bet there's a host of long-term syndromes akin to Long Covid that haven't been identified.

Re: Delta does not appear to make children sicker

#84

Post by angelzen »

tootie wrote: post #19
angelzen wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kids have vanishingly small risk of covid death, 1%-2% of the already vanishingly small risk of death for kids. The article confirms that the 'long covid in kids' fearmongering is also unwarranted. Given that surviving an infection also provides better long term protection (99.9995% of children survive covid), and that an infection later in life becomes significantly more dangerous, it raises big questions over the s…

It's unbelievable that this far into the pandemic people are still making this argument. It has been known from near the beginning that the direct risk to kids is relatively small. The risk is secondary exposure. Kids in school spread diseases like kudzu and can expose hundreds of adults very quickly. Protecting kids will prevent spread. Not to mention kids who are vaccinated can still possibly be exposed to covid an…

> this bit is not proven, I'm speculating

Thank you. This is the first time I hear someone admitting we are running an open ended experiment with no long term data for guidance. The immune system is not linear. We cannot simply pile up 'immunity tokens' on top of each other. The specific immunization history matters.

"Original antigenic sin, also known as antigenic imprinting or the Hoskins effect,[1] refers to the propensity of the body's immune system to preferentially utilize immunological memory based on a previous infection when a second slightly different version of that foreign pathogen (e.g. a virus or bacterium) is encountered. This leaves the immune system "trapped" by the first response it has made to each antigen, and unable to mount potentially more effective responses during subsequent infections. Antibodies or T-cells induced during infections with the first variant of the pathogen are subject to a form of original antigenic sin, termed repertoire freeze."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_antigenic_sin

We don't understand how vaccines interact with the long-term immune system. The OA cites one of the first studies I know about that looks into the issue. The answer is far from encouraging for mass covid mRNA vaccination campaigns in children: "Secondary immune response stronger after infection than after shot". "By comparison, vaccine-induced memory B cells are less robust, evolving for only a few weeks and never "learning" to protect against variants."

If you feel that child covid mRNA vaccinations are the way to go, provide evidence for your case, instead of obfuscating the issue. No, citing yet another antibody levels study is not very relevant to long term immunity discussions. Antibody levels suffer exponential decay over a few months. B-cells are supposed to kickstart antibody generation for the next infection event. If the vaccines are poor at eliciting B-cell generation, this is a major weakness.

"When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically. In this context the proponent of an activity, rather than the public, should bear the burden of proof."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle

Perhaps covid mRNA vaccine + infection works well in the long run. Perhaps it doesn't. At this point it's a gamble. I'm not sure what happened that we are willing to gamble the future health of our children.

Re: Delta does not appear to make children sicker

#85

Post by [deleted] »

bsaul wrote: post #27

Looking at this comment section, i wonder how we have gotten to this point : basically any comment gets downvoted by the other side. This whole crisis has become so political, it's completely absurd. We should be able to quietly talk about what's proven and what's not, what's a safe precaution, what's overkill, etc. without getting too passionate about it.. On a sidenote, I don't know if twitter is a good representat…

[deleted]

Re: Delta does not appear to make children sicker

#86

Post by nradov »

afavour wrote: post #74
farmerstan wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pfizer vaccine doesn’t prevent infection from delta. Vaccines prevent hospitalization. This is well documented. My friend, a doctor, was just infected by delta this week and she’s vaccinated. Getting kids vaccinated wont prevent other vaccinated kids from being infected. The kids vaccine is 1/3 of the dose of the adult vaccine. And the adult vaccine is known to drop down to 20% efficacy after 4 months. Kids already h…

> Getting kids vaccinated wont prevent other vaccinated kids from being infected. It will. Vaccinated people who get COVID have a lower viral load and less severe symptoms (in particular, coughing, sneezing etc) that would help spread the disease. No, it isn’t 100% but it will help, and it’ll also help stop kids from spreading COVID to more vulnerable people like their grandparents.

Please stop spreading misinformation. I recommend that everyone get vaccinated if they can, but the vaccines have only a limited and temporary effect in reducing transmission.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02689-y

The reality is that those grandparents are going to be exposed to the virus regardless of what their grandchildren do. Those grandparents have had plenty of time to get vaccinated themselves.

https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-variant-made-herd-immu...

Re: Delta does not appear to make children sicker

#87

Post by nradov »

kybernetyk wrote: post #72
op00to wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s bullshit because the risk for heart complications is higher if you get COVID than if you get the shot. This is simple math.

But those simple math calculations don’t factor in the chance of getting corona in the first place. 2 years in the pandemic and I only know 3 people who got corona. People act as if it was 100% certain one would get corona.

The Delta variant is sufficiently contagious that all of us can expect to be exposed multiple times in our lives. Just like what typically happens with the other endemic coronaviruses.

https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-variant-made-herd-immu...

Only a subset of those infected will experience clinically significant symptoms. Probably more than 3 of your acquaintances have had it but didn't even know it, maybe just felt a little tired for a few days.

Re: Delta does not appear to make children sicker

#88

Post by tootie »

farmerstan wrote: post #70
tootie wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's unbelievable that this far into the pandemic people are still making this argument. It has been known from near the beginning that the direct risk to kids is relatively small. The risk is secondary exposure. Kids in school spread diseases like kudzu and can expose hundreds of adults very quickly. Protecting kids will prevent spread. Not to mention kids who are vaccinated can still possibly be exposed to covid an…

Pfizer vaccine doesn’t prevent infection from delta. Vaccines prevent hospitalization. This is well documented. My friend, a doctor, was just infected by delta this week and she’s vaccinated. Getting kids vaccinated wont prevent other vaccinated kids from being infected. The kids vaccine is 1/3 of the dose of the adult vaccine. And the adult vaccine is known to drop down to 20% efficacy after 4 months. Kids already h…

Pfizer is very effective against Delta. Only very marginally less effective than previous strains. And the reason to vaccinate kids despite the low risk to their personal health has been mentioned multiple times in this thread.

Re: Delta does not appear to make children sicker

#89

Post by tootie »

angelzen wrote: post #84
tootie wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's unbelievable that this far into the pandemic people are still making this argument. It has been known from near the beginning that the direct risk to kids is relatively small. The risk is secondary exposure. Kids in school spread diseases like kudzu and can expose hundreds of adults very quickly. Protecting kids will prevent spread. Not to mention kids who are vaccinated can still possibly be exposed to covid an…

> this bit is not proven, I'm speculating Thank you. This is the first time I hear someone admitting we are running an open ended experiment with no long term data for guidance. The immune system is not linear. We cannot simply pile up 'immunity tokens' on top of each other. The specific immunization history matters. "Original antigenic sin, also known as antigenic imprinting or the Hoskins effect,[1] refers to the p…

I don't think the point needs to be proven because the notion that kids can spread Covid to adults is just a given. As is the rate of non-fatal hospitalization among children. And "gamble the future health of our children" is not a plausible concern given that we have proof of safety. My only speculation is on the result of both vaccine plus infection. Which isn't really informative to the debate since deliberate exposure isn't a valid public health policy.

Re: Delta does not appear to make children sicker

#90

Post by adolph »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #81
adolph wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying US and Scandinavia are the same but different? The US won’t jail you unless you disobey?

> US won’t jail you unless you disobey? They’re the same as in nobody is forced to get the vaccine. Nobody will be threatened with state violence for not getting the shot. They’re just barred from a lot of facilities for the choice they made. We do similarly for children whose parents refuse to give them measles shots. Enforcement, naturally, varies. In Manhattan, I’m constantly asked for card and ID. In Long Island,…

So you are walking down the street and the cops say “papers please” and you whip them out with the pride of someone protecting the homeland, because you have permission to walk around?
Post reply on HN