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Comment by jayknight | Hacker News Reader

This is a good article. I'm firmly on team do-what-it-takes-to-stop-the-spread, but no one has an exit strategy. I got a booster and we have appointments for two of our three kids to get there first shot. By mid-December I'm hoping to not have to think much about it anymore.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/11/what-amer...

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Your children do not need it - perhaps you should evaluate whether they are in an 'at risk' category like the Nordics

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01897-w In the US, 340 children under 17 have died from Covid. Total. During the same period, 187 have died from the flu, and over 51,000 children have died from all causes:

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm#Se...

Sweden halts Moderna: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-vaccine-moderna-sweden-ha... The reason the vaccines aren't being approved for children is that there is compelling evidence that children are at greater risk from the vaccines than the virus. This is why (for example) approval for vaccination of children and teenagers is split across Europe, and the UK has restricted access to only children with known vulnerabilities:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-19/u-k-to-gi...

From the nature.com link that you posted:

“The low rate of severe acute disease is important news, but this does not have to mean that COVID does not matter to children,” says paediatrician Danilo Buonsenso at the Gemelli University Hospital in Rome. “Please, let’s keep attention — as much as is feasible — on immunization.”

How about 1 out of 52 children in the 5-11 test group experiencing heart inflammation as a result of the vaccine? That sounds a hell of a lot more dangerous than covid for kids.

> "according to data reviewed by the CDC's advisory panel on vaccines, as of Oct. 10, almost 2 million 5- to 11-year-olds have gotten ill from COVID-19, and 94 have died."

That's a laughably low death rate. Driving your child to school is more dangerous for them than Covid.

Can you provide a citation for that "1 out of 52" statistic? I'm seeing

>In Pfizer's clinical trial for 5- to 11-year-olds, there were no cases of myocarditis, although the company acknowledged that the trials were not big enough to pick up such rare events.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/11/03/1051299...

LOL let's not look at the data that says children are very low risk, it's important to blindly give them the shots.

(Time to check my pfizer stock...)

I though most of the point of vaxing children and other low-risk groups is to stop the spread, not for their own individual safety. Reducing the chance they'll infect grandma. And reducing the circulating pool of infections to prevent more virulent strains from developing. Have I got this wrong?

I thought the vaccines don't stop or even really slow spread that much, especially with Delta variants. At least that's what authorities are saying. My understanding is that the point of vaccines as now explained is to prevent hospitalizations.

They do. If you have a "breakthrough infection", you are just as likely to spread it to someone else as someone who is infected without the vaccine. But you're much less likely to get infected in the first place if you've had the vaccine, so overall much less likely to pass it to others. So the more people who get vaccinated, the slower the spread.

See https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/

> If you have a "breakthrough infection", you are just as likely to spread it to someone else as someone who is infected without the vaccine

Somewhat less likely; on average if you're vaccinated you won't be infectious for as long a time if you do get it.

I think Delta is still above r0 1 in vaccinated. Delta plus is worse. So there will be spread amongst vaccinated. Not as much as unvaccinated but with vaccinated conditioned to think they are safe I don't see it solving much in the medium to longer term.

A high population of vaccinated is mathematically more likely to produce more virulent strains with a non sterile vaccine in a fast mutating virus.

> A high population of vaccinated is mathematically more likely to produce more virulent strains with a non sterile vaccine in a fast mutating virus.

Not so. Lots of cases produce worse variants, not vaccines.

https://theconversation.com/massive-numbers-of-new-covid-19-...

That's possible but unproven. The current thinking is that new variants are mostly likely to evolve in immunocompromised patients who experience persistent infections. Vaccines are less effective in such patients because the immune system doesn't respond as it should.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/covid-variants-ma...

But if vaccines permit asymptomatic spread, meaning the virus enters a host and begins replicating, without the host showing symptoms, by definition you’re increasing the number of opportunities for new mutations to occur. I’m not sure how that article refutes the grandparent comment’s point.

Asymptomatic spread is possible with or without the vaccine, but significantly less with it.

Its much more possible with a vaccine that reduces the severity of the disease and permits people to still be out and about, perhaps even unaware they might be infectious. If it puts you on your ass or worse, you aren't out spreading it.

Yes you have it wrong. That goes against medical ethics. You can't give someone a treatment that is net detrimental to them in order to benefit others.

>net detrimental

We're talking about covid vaccines here.

I encourage everyone eligible to get vaccinated, but at this point there is zero possibility to stop the spread. Your "team" never had a chance. We can all expect to get infected eventually.

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

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

By "stop", I guess I really mean slow/reduce/flatten-the-curve, etc. It's all a game of probabilities, and I guess I'm on team lets-work-together-as-a-society-to-reduce-the-chances-of-getting-and-spreading-sars-cov2. But that's slightly less catchy.

Are there any other considerents in life, or reduce-the-chances-of-getting-and-spreading-sars-cov2 is the only metric of relevance? Can you conceptualize any possible anti-covid measure that has too little of a benefit for too high of a cost, such that we should not deploy (or mandate!) it?

Perfect question, I was thinking of asking it here as well. I'll just expand it with a couple of points:

- What would the properties of vaccines need to be (efficacy, etc.), for experts to deem the vax mandates not reasonable?

- Same about face masks. How low the estimated efficiency must be for mandates to not be acceptable?

- Bonus point: how more soul-crushing the curfews and other movement limits need to be for them to remain in the realm of personal choice?

In other words, I would like to gauge how "falsifiable" is the "scientifically-informed" reasoning behind covid-enthusiasts' defense doctrine.

You mean you're going to skip the rest of the boosters they'll want you to get each quarter forever?

Not what I said. I, and my whole family, get flu shots every year. I wouldn't mind also getting one for covid if it is determined to help me and my community.

There are two possible exit strategies.

- Vaccinate everyone who can be vaccinated, at gunpoint.

- Allow everyone who is vulnerable to die, at which point the death rates will drop.

Choose. Which one do you want?

You can't produce, distribute and vaccinate everyone at gun point fast enough before it mutates away from what your vax targeted. And this strategy ignores animal reservoirs where the virus can reside and come back.

> You can't produce, distribute and vaccinate everyone at gun point

In the US, this is a very bad idea, indeed.

So the second one, then?

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