Risks to children are vanishingly small? Really?

[GrumpiestOldWoman]

Heard a statistician on BBC this morning explaining the statistics, tiny tiny risk to the under 25's.

Yes, fine, children have negligible risk of dying from covid 19. But I view the risk to my children as including the risk of losing one or both parents, which for many of us is more likely. Look how close the Prime Minister's son came to losing a parent.

Risk of dying - tiny. Risk from losing parent (s) - more significant surely?

You could say that for anyone at any age and for multiple factors. Risk as a word has to have meaning. And the chance of your children losing a parent to COVID is still very small.

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/09/children-coronavirus-death-kawasaki
Reported in th UK and France among others...
Lots we still dont know, so potentially may have more consequences on children we dont know of yet.

I think the risk of dying is small. It's the unknown, grey area between "dying" and "fully recovered" that I'd like to know more about.

You could say that for anyone at any age and for multiple factors. Risk as a word has to have meaning. And the chance of your children losing a parent to COVID is still very small.

Risk = probability x impact. The probability may be small but the impact is enormous.

I'm 29 and the number of deaths in my age group is also pretty tiny. Therefore I don't feel that me or DS are particularly at risk.

@Barbie222 that’s what I want to know too. I’m wondering whether we are being too blasé about mild symptoms when actually there may be long term damage to lungs etc.

To be fair to him he did make it clear he was only talking about the statistical chances of dying and realises other factors are important as well.

No, risk still tiny

@Waxonwaxoff0 yep I’m with you, I’m early 30s working frontline nhs and still not particularly worried

Risk to children's mental health throwing them under a bus like the current measures are at the moment = massive.

@dominashantotto yes I agree with you, I’m
More worried about my children’s future and life chances

My DS is quite happy with lockdown and remote learning. Think he will be disappointed if he has to go back to school, and as he is in Y10 he will be most likely in the first phase going back.

15 children died as passengers in a car between 2017-2018. I propose since this is a vanishingly small number we no longer need seatbelts.

It's not comparable to seat belts. There is no negative impact that I am aware of in wearing a seat belt. There are negative impacts of keeping children socially isolated at home for a long period of time.

Except that it hasn't been a long period of time, it's been a few weeks.

That's not to say eg schools should all be opened immediately but there is a balance of risks.

@PowerslidePanda Like I said, the word risk has to have meaning. The impact of losing a parent is huge but so is the impact of poverty, MH problems, suicide, homelessness, DV etc.

If we started using the potential consequences of COVID as a definition of the risk of the actual infection on an individual body, it becomes meaningless.

Which is why it's a nonsensical idea the OP is proposing.

Agree I think death is a low bar. I would like to know how many are bed bound for a couple if weeks and long term damage.

I'm late 50s, front line NHS.

I don't consider my risk of getting, let alone dying of Covid to be high at all!

And yes, I think the damage to our young people's futures due to our response to Covid will prove to be far worse than than the effects of actual Covid.

If you're 3, or 5 or 8 then a few weeks is a huge period of time. If you're 40, not so much.

@Spikeyball. I really worry about the negative effects of keeping especially young children at home.
My DC are now adults, but I am still concerned about the effects of the lack of nursery / pre school / infant, etc, as school is so important for their social and emotional development (especially as play dates, etc are also a no go).
With older children, there is such a disparity between those who have the facilities, committed parents, committed schools, and those who lack facilities (maybe space), lack committed parents (or parents working from home), and according to some posters there is huge variation between schools, and the provision made for home learning.

@nellodee but you don't stop taking children out in cars, do you? You use a seatbelt to lower the risk of injury in a crash. Therefore I'm not going to keep DS locked up in the house forever, I want him to be out at school and seeing his friends. It's about assessing that risk and acting as we see fit. Nothing we do in life is risk free.

Which is why it's a nonsensical idea the OP is proposing

If the primary risk to children is the risk of losing a parent, then the risk of a massive detrimental impact to the child is the same as it is for an adult of the parents age to die. If a child has 2 parents it's not a question of the odds of one person dying, it's the odds of two people both not dying. The risk may not be huge, but it's not as tiny as the risk that the child themselves dies.

Just feels simplistic to think about risk to children from C19 death as being from solely their own death.

Hardly nonsense.

Well if you think a few weeks of being ill and watching mum and dad be actually quite ill is better for your small children than their current situation then by all means strike our for normality. And may the odds forever be in your favour.

Except that it hasn't been a long period of time Exactly! it might be a long term factor but people were talking about damage to themselves or children on day 7.

We had people saying "I can't take the isolation any more" in the first week even though they were on zoom etc most of the day.