15yr old girl died of covid

[Louiselady500]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-58772671

Will this make people reconsider allowing their teenagers to have the vaccine.
Yes or No?

It’s made me think a lot about it even though my child isn’t old enough to be vaccinated yet. If the times comes I think I will be much more convinced than I maybe was before.

And actually, as far as vaccination goes, I'm pro vaccination but mainly because the covid rates are so out of control in school aged kids that it's almost a certainty they'll get it sooner or later and the risks of complications like myocarditis are higher with covid than with the vaccine.

If I lived in a country (and there are so many) who were keeping rates of covid low with basic mitigations, I'd probably be less keen on vaccinating, particularly if I had sons.

Both of my kids are too young to be vaccinated so I don't even get that choice at the moment though. It's a choice between the risk of isolation if I homeschool (plus the fact that would mean I couldn't work) or sending to school to be infected and just hope they're not affected too badly.

My 13 yo had already agreed she wanted it, we're waiting for the school rollout. But if she hadn't, this would make me strongly encourage her.

Yes, vaccines have risks. Catching Covid is far riskier, for any age group.

'The assessment by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) is that the health benefits from vaccination are marginally greater than the potential known harms. However, the margin of benefit is considered too small to support universal vaccination of healthy 12 to 15 year olds at this time.'

Marginally in the case of children, not far riskier as you state.

@herecomesthsun

These are the actual figures over the four weeks in question. Yes there are much higher numbers of deaths in the very elderly vaccinated groups, however weren't those the age groups that the vaccine is supposed to be protecting, by vaccinating the younger age groups and preventing (or limiting) spread?
Also, my point is that these figures don't seem to correlate with figures coming from the US, where they say that 90% of deaths and CASES are in unvaccinated people. If only 30% of the US is double vaccinated then yes, naturally you'd expect at least 70% of cases to be unvaccinated anyway, even if the vaccine didn't work.

@Toty, as you must know, the JCVI only had an extremely narrow remit, and they didn't take long covid, which affects 1 in 20 children who catch it, and can last for months, and do massive damage to organs, cause T1 diabetes etc.

That's why they didn't make the final decision.
But anti-vaxxers keep using that as some reasoning for the vaccine not being very good. And that's just not true.

Can I ask a question?

How comes before it was older/middle age/adults getting it. children/teenagers were hardly getting it /effected by it. Now suddenly they are?

It's as if covid has decided to group everyone into age groups and infect them 1 by 1. Starting with the oldest

@Generalpost.
It's because mitigations have been removed in schools. Plus, vaccines have been put out in order of vulnerability (which is by age). So, while children have also been having it since the start, when it went into care homes at the beginning, that was again because a lot of vulnerable and unvaccinated people were mixing.

Over the last year and a half we've had home-learning, and until this term, in our school we still had masks, staggered starts, pupils in bubbles that didn't mix, one-way systems etc.
All of that's been removed without any vaccines, so it's just spreading like wildfire. Meanwhile, many adults are still working from home, wearing masks, they've been double vaccinated, etc. so the virus just can't spread as well through that age range.

It's not the virus changing its mind (although the Delta is far more contagious), it's adults changing the levels of risk.

@duffeldaisy

Well explained.

Basically the government has decided to try herd immunity in our children knowing FULL WELL that this would mean some kids would die.

As Prof Christina Pagel said, a tiny tiny fraction of a very big number is still a big number.

I.e. if hundreds of thousands of kids have covid, even if the risk is tiny, some kids will be the ones to suffer. But actually if you care about general health and not just deaths (since when has that been the metric we measure ourselves against?) then the estimates for the number of children getting long covid are quite high.

No mitigations in schools at all. It's disgusting. They could have vaccinated 12-15s in the summer, they could have ensured every classroom had a co2 monitor and windows that opened properly, they could have installed air filtration devices - all of that would have made a huge difference not just to how many kids caught covid but also how many got really ill (viral dose does matter). They did nothing, they removed the mitigations of bubbles, isolation when a contact etc.

One of my DDs friends was kept off school after extremely close and prolonged contact with a person who tested positive. The school said to send her in while asymptomatic. She tested positive for covid 3 days later. That parent, risking a fine, kept her kid off for the benefit of others but not everyone would be confident enough to do that when the policy is otherwise. She probably saved a lot of people from catching covid, but it's not what you're supposed to do now.

I'm so deeply saddened by this story.

Both my 15 year olds have had Covid. One is asthmatic and was in bed for a few days with it last week. He passed it on to me (double vaccinatrd, 48) and I was also bed bound, still not right, now. I was so worried we had passed it on to my 75 year old mother.

The notion that Covid is mild/asymptomatic in children isn't the case. He won't be eligible for the vaccine now. If they had been rolled out in the summer I wonder what schools would look like now.

[quote OrganicBagel]@herecomesthsun

These are the actual figures over the four weeks in question. Yes there are much higher numbers of deaths in the very elderly vaccinated groups, however weren't those the age groups that the vaccine is supposed to be protecting, by vaccinating the younger age groups and preventing (or limiting) spread?
Also, my point is that these figures don't seem to correlate with figures coming from the US, where they say that 90% of deaths and CASES are in unvaccinated people. If only 30% of the US is double vaccinated then yes, naturally you'd expect at least 70% of cases to be unvaccinated anyway, even if the vaccine didn't work.[/quote]
Ok to (I think) repeat my point again, hopefully more clearly.

The groups of vaccinated and unvaccinated people would need to be matched for age and risk, if you wanted a scientific comparison of mortality across them.

If you have a lot more 90 year olds and people with blood cancers in the vaccinated group, then you might get some people who will die with covid anyhow.

However, if those people had got ill without being vaccinated first, a shedload more would have died.

So if you are doing a comparison, you need to compare like with like.

(I haven't read up much about US figures, but from what you say, it sounds as though a disproportionate number of deaths are in the unvaccinated, which is broadly what you'd expect).

@Toty

Yes, vaccines have risks. Catching Covid is far riskier, for any age group.

'The assessment by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) is that the health benefits from vaccination are marginally greater than the potential known harms. However, the margin of benefit is considered too small to support universal vaccination of healthy 12 to 15 year olds at this time.'

Marginally in the case of children, not far riskier as you state.

It depends what risks you take into account. Other medical and health experts, including the CMOs, think the benefit is strongly in favour of offering vaccines to age 12 +, considering all health risks and potential disruption of education etc.

I don't think NZ or Australia have had any deaths of children at all from covid.

And their kids have been in school more normally throughout.

Have you noticed how low the rates are in those countries @theemperorhasnoclothes. And schools were/are closed in their lockdowns

No, and NZ has only had 27 deaths in total. While remaining completely 'normal' for most of the time, only doing v hard lock downs a couple of times to get cases back to normal. I just do not get why we don't learn from what's going on in low-case countries like that.

Right from the start, the sensible approach has been a few weeks of super-hard lockdown to get cases properly trackable. Yes, it would be hard, and expensive for the government to support everyone for those 3 or 4 weeks, but then we could have a normal life again, and we could have saved tens of thousands of deaths, tens of thousands of chronic illnesses instantly.

@Generalpost

Can I ask a question?

How comes before it was older/middle age/adults getting it. children/teenagers were hardly getting it /effected by it. Now suddenly they are?

It's as if covid has decided to group everyone into age groups and infect them 1 by 1. Starting with the oldest

Cynical answer would be - because they are the age group that the government want to vaccinate now. It's reported that many children will have been exposed to the virus by now either at school and/ or because another family member had it and that immunity levels are already high in that age group.

12 children out of hundreds of thousands suffered from myocarditis from the vaccine. You are much more likely to be seriously ill from covid than the vaccine. It's a fact and can't be disputed.

This is awful- I read it last night and was really shocked. If I had a teen this would be a kick up the arse to get them jabbed.

Are we just going to stand by while there's 10 preventable deaths next month and the next? Not to mention the illness, missed school and disability. I wonder.

The rates of covid in school age children since they removed mitigations have NEVER been HIGHER. There is proof of what's going on.

Deliberate infection of kids. Kids missing school because teachers are off sick. 122,000 kids off with covid (probably more now this figure is from end of Sept). It doesn't have to be like this.

I've emailed my schools to ask that they instigate masks while rates so high in 10-15s AND make sure they have ventilation AND offered to contribute to funding CO2 monitors (which are mysteriously absent given the government announced they'd fund them) and/or appropriate air filters.

For Jorja and all the others who sadly have died or suffered trauma and illness because of adult inaction.

Whatever we do in life there is always going to be a risk , not only with COVID.

And as parents we are supposed to mitigate that risk where we can. Living with risk doesn’t mean just accepting it without making any effort.

@Takingabreakagain

It's really sad when a young person dies. But it's one person - how many teens have had covid and barely been ill? Thousands but it's not news to report mild cases. People need to keep some perspective on the situation and shouldn't panic over this. We still do not know what the long term impacts of the vaccine are and how it will affect young people.

Agree with this

How comes before it was older/middle age/adults getting it. children/teenagers were hardly getting it /effected by it. Now suddenly they are?

Perhaps because they have changed isolation rules, removed bubbles, removed masks, removed all the mitigations we had in schools. All the things the scientists warned would make numbers increase, particularly as the Delta variant took hold. They did this because people were bitching about large numbers of kids having to isolate previously. So now those kids are catching Covid instead and having to be off with that.

People need to keep some perspective on the situation and shouldn't panic over this. We still do not know what the long term impacts of the vaccine are and how it will affect young people.

Here’s the perspective. No vaccine has ever been proven to cause long term damage to children except in a vanishingly small number and even then the proof isn’t absolute. Covid is proving to cause long term damage to children, and we don’t yet know how this will affect them their whole life. Vaccinating children will also help protect the rest of the nation, as every other vaccine does too.

There is absolutely no doubt the risk to a child from Covid, is higher than the risk to a child from the vaccine. Now, you might take the view that the risk from Covid is so small, you don’t want to vaccinate them, but to pretend that is because vaccinating them is the more risky strategy ignores every bit of science there is available.

But it's one person - how many teens have had covid and barely been ill?

Another perspective - imagine the teen who dies was yours. Now imagine how you would feel about the vaccine then. Would you be encouraging anyone else with a teenager to consider having them vaccinated?

@theemperorhasnoclothes

Are we just going to stand by while there's 10 preventable deaths next month and the next? Not to mention the illness, missed school and disability. I wonder.

The rates of covid in school age children since they removed mitigations have NEVER been HIGHER. There is proof of what's going on.

Deliberate infection of kids. Kids missing school because teachers are off sick. 122,000 kids off with covid (probably more now this figure is from end of Sept). It doesn't have to be like this.

I've emailed my schools to ask that they instigate masks while rates so high in 10-15s AND make sure they have ventilation AND offered to contribute to funding CO2 monitors (which are mysteriously absent given the government announced they'd fund them) and/or appropriate air filters.

For Jorja and all the others who sadly have died or suffered trauma and illness because of adult inaction.

100 per cent agreed. This is also what I take from this tragic story. And I don't understand why parents aren't more angry about the lack of mitigations. Vaccinations should have been rolled out earlier BUT there are simple mitigations in schools which could have been put into place which haven't been and which are in being put into place in other countries. In fact, this is the reason I was so eager for the vaccine for my daughter despite a few doubts. Because there is simply no other meaningful protections in place in schools. Not to mention the fact that if it all starts exploding in schools again, community spread will increase as well. Hopefully with the vaccines it won't be as bad as last year but it's a very big gamble on the government's part.

Another perspective - imagine the teen who dies was yours. Now imagine how you would feel about the vaccine then. Would you be encouraging anyone else with a teenager to consider having them vaccinated?

Exactly this. We've had teens with covid as inpatients in my hospital. None have been vaccinated. All of their parents are heartbroken that they didn't have it.

We are starting to understand why some people are susceptible to severe covid despite lack of comorbidities and being young. Some people have or produce a high level of an enzyme called CD47 that plays an important role in driving the inflammatory response to a covid infection.

A Potential Role of the CD47/SIRPalpha Axis in COVID-19 Pathogenesis

There's no way of knowing if someone will fall into this category regardless of youth or other risk factors.

We still do not know what the long term impacts of the vaccine are and how it will affect young people.

What we do know is that adverse reactions to vaccinations of all sorts happen within weeks, not months or years. That's the nature of the immune system. We also know that it's been over a year since clinical trials of the vaccines started and those trial subjects are still being closely monitored for ill effects. None have been found. And we know that at least 5 million people have died from covid so far. It really boggles the mind that some people are more afraid of the vaccine than the virus.