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Children's Risk of Serious Illness from Covid-19 Is as Low as It Is for the Flu

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Re: Children's Risk of Serious Illness from Covid-19 Is as Low as It Is for the Flu

#11

Post by throwawayboise »

NikolaeVarius wrote: post #3
dv_dt wrote: post #2

But the risk for children getting sick at school and bringing it back to their parents very much does not play out like the flu. I also think it is irresponsible for this article to not mention what ages they’re actually talking about. At some point there is a crossover of the risk and it may be in the younger to mid teens.

And the teachers. I know 2 teachers that are terrified that the kids will get them Covid-19, since they already get sick from the petri dishes that are children.

Are they not vaccinated? Do they not trust that the vaccine works, at least as far as preventing serious illness?

Re: Children's Risk of Serious Illness from Covid-19 Is as Low as It Is for the Flu

#15

Post by throwaway_52828 »

NikolaeVarius wrote: post #3
dv_dt wrote: post #2

But the risk for children getting sick at school and bringing it back to their parents very much does not play out like the flu. I also think it is irresponsible for this article to not mention what ages they’re actually talking about. At some point there is a crossover of the risk and it may be in the younger to mid teens.

And the teachers. I know 2 teachers that are terrified that the kids will get them Covid-19, since they already get sick from the petri dishes that are children.

If the teachers are vaxxed and boosted, COVID is less threatening than the flu.

And if they aren’t, it seems like they don’t have grounds to complain.

The only way this worry makes sense is if the teachers live with somebody who is highly immunocompromised. Which would indeed suck, but it’s crazy to design societal policy around those dangers.

Re: Children's Risk of Serious Illness from Covid-19 Is as Low as It Is for the Flu

#16

Post by magicalhippo »

throwawayboise wrote: post #11
NikolaeVarius wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the teachers. I know 2 teachers that are terrified that the kids will get them Covid-19, since they already get sick from the petri dishes that are children.

Are they not vaccinated? Do they not trust that the vaccine works, at least as far as preventing serious illness?

Here in Norway the vaccine rollout for non-critical people followed just age brackets. So I, a programmer with zero issues working from home, got the vaccine weeks before tons of younger teachers, who had to go to class each day and meet kids which could potentially infect them.

I guess it would be complicated if they had to start introducing multiple levels, or some sort of "you can have my seat" functionality, still...

Re: Children's Risk of Serious Illness from Covid-19 Is as Low as It Is for the Flu

#17

Post by NikolaeVarius »

throwawayboise wrote: post #11
NikolaeVarius wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the teachers. I know 2 teachers that are terrified that the kids will get them Covid-19, since they already get sick from the petri dishes that are children.

Are they not vaccinated? Do they not trust that the vaccine works, at least as far as preventing serious illness?

Yes they are. At least one of them has their health compromised and breakthrough cases have been a thing since day 1. Also, they work with a LOT of kids, so that alot more chances for exposure.

They are not dumb.

Re: Children's Risk of Serious Illness from Covid-19 Is as Low as It Is for the Flu

#18

Post by kerabatsos »

dv_dt wrote: post #2

But the risk for children getting sick at school and bringing it back to their parents very much does not play out like the flu. I also think it is irresponsible for this article to not mention what ages they’re actually talking about. At some point there is a crossover of the risk and it may be in the younger to mid teens.

This is hardly ever mentioned. The fact that children easily spread it back to parents, etc. was (and still is) conveniently left out of the discussion - even prior to access to vaccinations it was simply ignored. It’s one of the reasons we kept our children home from school, the first year of the pandemic. There were even “experts” arguing that children just didn’t spread the virus at all - which turned out to be ludicrous.

Re: Children's Risk of Serious Illness from Covid-19 Is as Low as It Is for the Flu

#19

Post by it_does_follow »

The issue is omicron seems to be spreading, at last from what I've seen, faster than the flu (and unquestionably faster than delta).

Most seasonal flu I've lived through, I've never seen everyone in the household come down with it immediately at the same time. In my home everyone came down with covid, kids and adults, almost exactly at the same time with the same symptoms.

Omicron can be 0.1 times as lethal as delta, but if it spreads to 20 times as many people as delta it will still be twice as deadly.

Clearly we don't have enough information right now to do the calculus, it looks like omicron is less severe, it looks like it's more contagious, but how exactly this balances out seems to be unknown. Though I have seen more hospitals in my region reporting record admissions.

I'm still seeing bars in the area sending out email campaigns encouraging people to come up and party for NYE. It's funny that while requiring vaccines they make no mention of "stay home if you feel sick". Right now I don't think we have enough information to correctly assess the real risk of actively encourage people to gather for NYE, but given what we do know it certainly seems like a risky idea.

edit: I'll add the "as low as" phrasing is a bit odd, since my understanding of past variants is that their risk to children was lower than the flu. This means that, relative to other variants, being "as serious as the flu" would be an upgrade in the level of risk.

Re: Children's Risk of Serious Illness from Covid-19 Is as Low as It Is for the Flu

#20

Post by petmon »

hitpointdrew wrote: post #6
dv_dt wrote: post #2

But the risk for children getting sick at school and bringing it back to their parents very much does not play out like the flu. I also think it is irresponsible for this article to not mention what ages they’re actually talking about. At some point there is a crossover of the risk and it may be in the younger to mid teens.

The risk of anyone un-vaxxed going to the hospital after catching covid is 0.89% (source: https://news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/354938/adults-estimat... ) and it is even lower than that if you are vaxxed. It is incredibly unnecessary and risky to vax children, and probably most adults. The only people that this vax should be recommended to are people in high-risk categorizes.

To be clear the 0.89% figure was obtained by dividing hospitalizations by population, so it includes many unvaccinated people who have not caught COVID (yet).

The chance that an unvaccinated person who is COVID-positive will require hospitalization is around 3%.

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