Schools should offer yearly Covid jab instead of flu

[SteakBakesAndHotTakes]

If we can have one, Covid is more common than flu, spreads more easily than flu, and although flu causes more severe illness at time of infection, repeated exposure to Covid increases the chance of long Covid for the child and the rest of the family.

I would rather both but if we had to pick one, my kids have brought home Covid four times and I would rather they be inoculated against it.

You’ll never achieve herd immunity from covid because of the mistrust in the vaccine. It wouldn’t be mandatory to have it and I think a lot of people wouldn’t let their children have it, especially with there being a lot of talk in the media of the link between the vaccine and some types of cancer.

Flu jab not particularly effective either tbh

If it mutates every 5 minutes as people have said, herd immunity not possible anyway

Flu is a bigger public health issue. Flu will also block more hospital beds.

Yes long covid is a risk and the number of people out of work/claiming PIP has gone up since the pandemic with long covid being a factor in that.

But long covid has many similarities to other auto-immune and other post viral fatigue syndromes including ME. The difference is the higher numbers/being more recognised.

Personally (as someone with long covid and POTS which many LC sufferers have) the money would be better spent working on properly supporting sufferers and training medical professionals.

There is no magic wand (like many long term conditions) but improvement is possible if you have the right information, support, occupational health support and access to the right people and medication.

Vaccinations also don't stop covid infection they reduce the severity and therefore the risk remains of long covid.

It's not anti Vax cray cray to objectively say that flu is deadlier and more of a problem than COVID.

The vulnerable people are being immunised. Kids aren't a vulnerable cohort when it comes to COVID.

I would rather both but if we had to pick one, my kids have brought home Covid four times and I would rather they be inoculated against it

So, tell us you are not an epidemiologist, infectious diseases expert or specialty virologist without telling us🤣. Frankly, we are lucky we have the correct people running the show and not people like yourself.

😂

That is just the vaccine delivery method. Plenty of children do get flu jabs though if they can’t use the spray for various reasons, including religious (the spray includes gelatine)

The only time DS had Covid that we know of, he had a bad headache for an hour and that was it. His current cold is affecting him more. Flu vaccination all the way for us.

Long Covid is a big risk on a population level

So, can you present the risk figures and outcome economics for this versus influenza’s and stratified. This is really what’s needed for such a comparison and decision, rather than a silly rant on a parenting website. This will already have been done (by qualified experts), but how about you have a crack and present your findings here!

This is not entirely true. Children spread corona viruses around like no tomorrow - it is one of the causes of the common cold. This did give some degree of herd immunity to covid to children - and those who worked/lived with them - until lock down. Lockdown interrupted the spread of other corona virus and reduced the naturally acquired immunity from other corona viruses, making them and associated adults more vulnerable to Covid.

Influenza infection is very different from what a lot of people describe as ‘flu, which is basically a cold caused by a difference virus. But even if you assume a lot of people with influenza are asymptomatic, without the vaccine there are much much higher numbers of people getting symptomatic flu and in bed for two weeks or worse, including dying from it.

It's not an assumption. Lots of people with influenza infection are symptomatic, and some others only have mild symptoms. You're right that lots of people describe flu as something that has to be really serious especially on MN but those people are wrong.

This is a separate point to vaccination, which wasn't what I was discussing.

@Icebreakhell The criteria are extremely narrow now, and the vast majority of clinically vulnerable people are no longer eligible. The JCVI's rationale is about cost cutting (which is daft because it leads to more hospitalisations and long term sick which has a massive economic cost) and our vaccine offer is way out of step with what most comparable countries are offering to their populations.

Predictably, there is loads of denial, misinformation and bullshit on this thread. Covid is not flu - it's not seasonal and circulates year round, and has worst outcomes than flu statistically on almost every measure. People catch flu roughly every 10 years, people are catching covid at least yearly if not multiple times a year. There is vast amounts of robust research now showing the impact covid can have on the body, even with a mild case it's not a cold and can damage the body. Long covid remains a threat and the more times you get infected, the more likely you are to get it. It hasn't suddenly become less dangerous just because you don't want to think about it.

It is irrelevant though when discussing vaccines. Without vaccines the incidence of flu that lands people in bed for two weeks, with six weeks recovery, or hospital and potential death, is much much higher. Flu season used to regularly result in schools finding significant proportions of the classes off for over a week. Like exposure to other corona viruses offer some protection against Covid, the same is true of flu, including the flu vaccine. So regular flu vaccines raises general immunity in a person to other flu strains. On average there are over 13,000 deaths in the uk each year associated with flu.

The JCVI's rationale is about cost cutting (which is daft because it leads to more hospitalisations and long term sick which has a massive economic cost)

Costs of hospitalisation and long term sickness are included in modelling of costs. That is very basic public health planning.

Isn't it more that the covid vaccine are a bit crap and don't do anything to restrict transmission so there is no point giving them to kids for herd immunity reasons. And kids aren't generally vulnerable so no individual benefit either. (I assume vulnerable populations get vaccines as required outside these programs).

People get post-viral fatigue (long COVID, if you want to call it that) from the flu same as COVID.

I’ve had COVID many times and it’s never been as horrific as the flu, so I wouldn’t be hugely motivated to get a COVID jab or get one for my dc. Even though I am immunocompromised and I do get offered a COVID jab (I’m getting it this year due to cancer treatment, but didn’t last year).

It’s bad enough trying to get parents to agree to the flu spray for their dc. Because everyone has watched some YouTube video about it. 🙄 Can you imagine getting them to agree to a COVID jab?!

As a health scientist, there is a reason there is greater benefit to offering flu vaccines at a broad level compared to COVID, and that’s why from a public health standpoint, we do. It doesn’t prevent any individual from seeking vaccination privately though if they have concerns about long COVID, etc.

Whilst post viral fatigue and long covid are similar they are not the same with symptoms of LC far more extensive and immune system compromised with triggering of other auto immune conditions hence the rise is Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) and POTS as well.

The same as fibromyalgia and ME are not the same conditions but share similarities.

I would hope as a health scientist you would have a less blasé response in working life to a condition that effects thousands of people.
I don't however agree with the OP on vaccinations for children.

If the duration and symptoms of flu are irrelevant when discussing vaccines, you shouldn't have raised the issue in the first place. Especially not to say something so wrong about it!

So you are suggesting deaths and morbidity aren’t relevant when designing public health programs?

It’s the NHS that does the jabs. Using school premises. I’ve spent years being the person who organises the school side of this !

You do realise that the Covid jab doesn't prevent you from catching or transmitting Covid - it simply reduces the severity of the symptoms as well as helping reduce the level of transmission by reducing the period of infection.

YABU Flu kills thousands of people every year, the young, old and vulnerable particularly at risk. I was hospitalised with it once, thought I was going to die and it took me months to recover.