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Comment by croes | Hacker News Reader

"who have essentially zero risk of COVID-19 mortality." With current virus, that could change with each mutation.

Viruses generally change to be less deadly and more transmissible. The “new variant” is just more transmissible.

It doesn’t make sense to argue “oh what if this virus magically evolves to hurt children”. You need to propose a theoretical mechanism of action. Otherwise spend your time worrying about flu and tuberculosis which kill far more children than COVID-19.

And it infects children more easily.

What’s your point? As I said:

> over the long run the set of all COVID-19-naive individuals becomes dominated by the very young (infants/toddlers), who have essentially zero risk of COVID-19 mortality.

BTW they generally become less deadly because the less deadly spread faster because they don't kill the host, but this virus has a rather long incubation period, so you can have both. Easy spread and higher death rate.

"Babies under 1 year old and children with certain underlying conditions may be more likely to have severe illness from COVID-19." Zero risk?

A lot of things COULD happen. For example, a meteor could hit the earth and wipe out all life. Therefore we should pour ALL resources into space exploration, not medicine.

Compare the probabilities.

Yes, please do! I think there is an inflated perception of risk because of the relentless media coverage. Risks are probably still higher than the meteor example, but the point of the example is to call for actual numbers! It's not enough to say "some bad thing COULD happen". Many bad things COULD happen.

We cannot indefinitely implement totalitarian lockdowns based on the fact that something "might" happen. No joke, that is how dictatorships start.

Some things are more likely than others.

Yes, for example ushering in a new totalitarian age is much more likely than a (in children) very mild virus magically becoming super deadly.

I really think you may not have ever read the literature on COVID-19 in children. We should be shouting at the rooftops that kids are safe (and btw transmit less than kids), instead here in California we’ve closed school for a year which will - in children - far surpass the harms of COVID-19 by orders of magnitude.

A mild virus? That's some kind of understatement.

"Babies under 1 year old and children with certain underlying conditions may be more likely to have severe illness from COVID-19."

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