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Comment by titzer | Hacker News Reader

I wouldn't be so cavalier in assuming that just because you don't die that everything is A-OK and you're 100% fine. Viral infections can do damage that isn't apparent until years later. For example, it's now well-established that HPV infection causes cervical cancer later in life, and HPV is basically symptom-free.

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Chicken pox/varicella is another disease to which a lot of children gained natural immunity prior to vaccination being an option (“chicken pox parties” were still a thing when I was a kid in the 90s). We now know that the virus can lay dormant for years after the initial infection and come back later in life as shingles which, while not deadly, can be extremely painful and debilitating.

Varicella is a herpes virus. It has almost nothing in common with coronaviruses, which don't lay dormant.

Nobody claimed COVID could lay dormant as a specific mechanism, but rather that it could cause unexpected long-term damage that diminishes quality-of-life and yet isn't caught in shallow "did they die Y/N" analysis.

Is there any evidence that COVID-19 causes more long-term damage to children than other endemic coronaviruses such as HCoV-OC43?

For the studies I've read, most long term damage appears to be caused by viral concentrations in disparate organs, as a result of uncontrolled infection (i.e. insufficient natural or vaccinated immune system effectiveness to keep it under control).

From reasoning, kids have stronger innate immune systems, but weaker adaptive immune systems, so we shouldn't see as many "runaway COVID" cases with organ damage, because the infection is blunted by their initial, innate response.

That said, if kids end up being an unvaccinated population for SARS-CoV-2... well, that's playing dice with evolution.

That doesn't answer the question. Yes kids have more effective innate immune response. But the vaccinated population can also serve as hosts for potentially evolving new variants. We've been playing dice with evolution of the other 4 endemic coronaviruses for centuries with no vaccines and so far nothing catastrophic has happened. Other than speculative fear mongering about what could happen, is there any actual scientific evidence to expect that SARS-CoV-2 will follow a different evolutionary trajectory?

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/covid-19-will-just-end-up...

Here's a better link: https://virologyj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12985-...

> We've been playing dice with evolution of the other 4 endemic coronaviruses for centuries with no vaccines and so far nothing catastrophic has happened.

SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV?

> is there any actual scientific evidence to expect that SARS-CoV-2 will follow a different evolutionary trajectory?

SARS-CoV-2 is now in more hosts than any other endemic coronavirus, due to its higher transmission rates. About half (~48% with single dose) of the world is now vaccinated (mostly in wealthy countries). Effectively zero children younger than 12 are vaccinated.

Vaccination produces a body that's much more resistant to replication, via viral suppression by the immune system.

Consequently, we're increasing the difficulty of SARS-CoV-2 reproducing in adults, while holding the difficulty of doing so in children constant.

You'd be foolish not to consider that risky from an evolutionary perspective.

You seem to have misunderstood. SARS-CoV and MERS are not endemic. Those are HCoV-229E, -NL63, -OC43, and -HKU1.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S006535271...)

In particular OC43 is a beta coronavirus genetically close to SARS-CoV-2. It is suspected to have caused the 1889 pandemic.

https://sfamjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/175...

Now most of us still get infected with OC43 at some point in our lives. There is no vaccine. The resulting natural immunity protects us as we age. The virus has had plenty of opportunity to evolve more dangerous variants but hasn't done so.

I encourage everyone to get vaccinated against COVID-19 if they can, but you'd be foolish to think that significantly reduces the risk of a more dangerous mutation.

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

As someone who had shingles in their late 20s, it's not fun, but not awful either. Admittedly, apparently it's worse for the elderly.

On a 0 (feel fine) - 5 (2nd degree sunburn over a wide body area) - 10 (fractured rib) scale, I'd put it at a 6. And ran about 4 days before symptoms abated.

It felt a lot like really bad sunburn, to the extent that clothing (jeans) against my skin was exhausting and movement avoided. Was on the road at the time with a client, so would work all day, then get back to the hotel and immediately go to sleep.

As someone who has had shingles in my left eye for the last 4 years, I can tell you it's not something to mess around with. I didn't get the vaccine because everyone kept telling me to get it when I turned 60. Unfortunately, it decided to come out when I was 57.

I'm still on steroid eyedrops and take 2g of antiviral medicine every day to keep it somewhat in check.

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