School pupils vaccinated from September

[Totalbeach]

This is in lots of papers today. Such as:

www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/19274021.secondary-school-pupils-set-get-covid-jab-september/

And:

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/02/nhs-england-draws-up-plan-to-give-covid-jabs-to-children-12-and-over

What’s your reaction?

Mine is that I 100% won’t be allowing my children to be vaccinated.

In the whole pandemic so far, 12 children under 15 have died in the U.K. That increases to 32 in the under 20s. The mortality rate is vanishingly tiny. A huge percentage of kids don’t even get symptoms at all.

The government has assured us till they are blue in the face that schools are safe and that children don’t spread it so it will be interesting to see what kind of enormous gaslighting they attempt to pull off to persuade parents they now need to vaccinate their kids.

The long term effects of the vaccines are totally unknown and recent events with AZ have proved rather horribly that even after a vaccine is rolled out, serious effects can come to light. Including events that disproportionately affect certain age groups.

I’m fully vaccinated (including first Covid vaccine) as are my kids but there is no way I’d let them be vaccinated in September. With any of the vaccines.

@Ninefeettall

So the JCVI are going to closely watch the use of Pfizer in US teenagers before recommending it for use in the UK.

Which sounds pretty sensible to me.

Sensible - or unethical on a global scale?

Because let's face it, what they're really saying is, 'Let's see if any of those kids die or get injured so we can decide whether to risk doing it to our kids'.

And even if not one single child in the US comes to any harm from their vaccine between now and September, it won't prove the long-term safety. It won't prove that girls will get their periods when they should have and develop and be fertile as they should or that no longer-term damage has been done to any of their young, growing bodies. We'll only know that in a few years.

There is no evidence as far as I know that a previous vaccine has impacted on fertility.

We know for sure that infection with a virus (mumps for example) can render children infertile in later life.

The vaccine would appear to be the safer bet in this regard.

There is no justification for vaccinating kids other than to protect society

Which has been stated by even the committee

I worry about parents who’d use their kids in this way. Hardly any kids have died - including those CEV

Any vaccine risk at all has to be higher than covid risk for almost all kids

So in the tiny trial of Pfizer there was a 1/600 of mental illness after Pfizer and 0 in placebo?

Jeezo. How can they just say it’s not connected?

Given we are discussing the theoretics on here is the Pfizer vaccine crossing the boood brain barrier, this sounds not great to me - a moronically stupid non scientist.

I can’t see the pointing vaccination of children here when 1000s of adults are dying in India without access to vaccines. We should focus on making them available abroad to countries that desperately need them. The more it runs unchecked in other places the more resistant variations will emerge

Happy to have the vaccine myself and do my bit for herd immunity too but I can’t see the those arguments for the kids

[quote worriedatthemoment]@Ninefeettall how else do you suggest they do it ? All vaccines would of had to be tested on people and long term data waited on
We don't make vaccinations compulsory here and they may not even be needed bit whats your alternative[/quote]
I strongly suggest they don't vaccinate people who are not at risk.

The thing is, children on immunosuppressants or who are living with vulnerable family are probably the only cohort that should get it, under the direction of their family doctor.

It should never be a mandate so they can do thing that they were doing anyway in states like Florida, Texas and Georgia.

No understanding of why we should do this. Doesn’t anyone remember those cases of narcolepsy among kids getting the swine flu shot? Isn’t the myocarditis link among young males scary enough for you?

If children are seriously injured I hope they sue the shit out of mandating organisations like school boards and colleges.

Children are super spreaders. There's a school about 60 miles from me it had 90 cases and that's recently.
There's studies starting with children age 6 up in the States . Not many healthy children die of Covid but small numbers have. Plus the risk of long covid applies to children too.

@Roonerspismed

So in the tiny trial of Pfizer there was a 1/600 of mental illness after Pfizer and 0 in placebo?

Jeezo. How can they just say it’s not connected?

Given we are discussing the theoretics on here is the Pfizer vaccine crossing the boood brain barrier, this sounds not great to me - a moronically stupid non scientist.

Vaccines don't cross the blood brain barrier.

www.chop.edu/centers-programs/vaccine-education-center/vaccine-safety/blood-brain-barrier-and-vaccines

And you really can't say 1 case means Pfizer causes mental illness.

That person may have a bit of anxiety it could be a number of issues. I can't say that ratio would worry me.

@herecomesthesun possibly unethical on a global scale yes. The ethics of testing a vaccine on children that has so little impact on them has been questioned.

But from the UKs point of view, they can't influence what the USA does and it's eminently more sensible than vaccinating children off the back of data from a 3 month trial involving 2600 children. (Perhaps that is not what the USA are doing, they may also want more data before they roll it out).

@Roonerspismed

So in the tiny trial of Pfizer there was a 1/600 of mental illness after Pfizer and 0 in placebo?

Jeezo. How can they just say it’s not connected?

Given we are discussing the theoretics on here is the Pfizer vaccine crossing the boood brain barrier, this sounds not great to me - a moronically stupid non scientist.

There's a whole branch of mathematics called inferential statistics that allows comparison between sets of data (like control vs treatment in this case) and lets you calculate the probability that a difference between the two groups is statistically significant or due to random chance.

Statistical inference

In this case the single case was rare enough to not be significant.

Chaps, I can't believe you're not taking Roonerspismed more seriously. I'm sure all the people involved in the vaccine trial will be reading what she just wrote, putting their heads in their hands, and muttering "Oh my god, I can't believe I didn't notice that. Thank goodness there's a mumsnetter in the UK who's keeping an eye on what we're doing."

@ZZTopGuitarSolo

Chaps, I can't believe you're not taking Roonerspismed more seriously. I'm sure all the people involved in the vaccine trial will be reading what she just wrote, putting their heads in their hands, and muttering "Oh my god, I can't believe I didn't notice that. Thank goodness there's a mumsnetter in the UK who's keeping an eye on what we're doing."

I agree. The boffins (I love that word) at Pfizer, the FDA and the CDC are clearly kicking themselves now.

What - the same algorithms that were used the by the MHRA to “detect” the blood costs of AZ and which were utterly missed? That took a German doctor to notice and flag to multiple “experts” looking at safety data. Jesus wept. Can you not see the negligence of such a system?

I would love to share your faith in the system but this approach was exactly why the blood clots from AZ was missed.

You can apply all the algorithms you like; if a tiny study on children receiving Pfizer showed this, I would be looking at each individual case and doing a lot more tests! Oh wait, that is exactly what will happen when they start using it on young people. Let’s hope they get the algorithms right this time.

And this thick and stupid MNtter in the U.K. shall continue to watch and wait. The joys of being a moron

I'm sure the ACIP board is in the process of resigning right now Rooners.

Well I would hope the MHRA is reviewing it’s utterly shite processes so let’s hope lessons have been learnt

ZZ aren't you in the US? Why you posting about uk policies etc? (by the way our Uni's return full time this month so before US but who's counting?!)

The UK is linked heavily to Europe hence different decisions made. We actually know whats going on outside our own country and most know why we made those choices even if we don't always agree.

No one should care what you think really

What - the same algorithms that were used the by the MHRA to “detect” the blood costs of AZ and which were utterly missed? That took a German doctor to notice and flag to multiple “experts” looking at safety data. Jesus wept. Can you not see the negligence of such a system?

A German doctor reported the issue to German authorities who reported it to the EMA, as he was required to.

Covid: Germany limits use of AstraZeneca Covid jab for under-60s

Adverse event reports have to be made by doctors. That's how public health authorities get the data. How else would they possibly get it?

if a tiny study on children receiving Pfizer showed this, I would be looking at each individual case and doing a lot more tests!

Any medical issue a subject in a clinical trial has is looked into to see if there's any plausible connection to the treatment. In the case of a mental health issue it could have been situational, hormonal, hereditary, etc. Given that adverse impacts on mental health haven't been observed in the millions of patients who have had Pfizer previously and the fact there was just one subject in the study who had such an issue, it's reasonable to assume that they are unrelated.

Rare events are just that. The fact that millions of doses of the AZ vaccine were given before the clotting issue came to light is just such a rare event. There's no way to find them without millions of people having the intervention.

You seem to think that there's a way to test vaccines in such a way to guarantee that no one anywhere ever has an adverse reaction. Unfortunately, that's logically impossible, as someone up thread noted about being unable to prove that leprechauns don't exist. The only way to have perfectly safe medical treatments is not to have them at all, and let covid run unchecked through the population, for example.

miss conduct i can’t be arsed arguing with you. Honestly - agree to differ. Give your kids the vaccine and I choose not to for now. Let’s all hope you are right and I’m wrong. I remain cautious through harsh experience and my caution has generally served me well. I hope to god my worry over the vaccination of the young is unfounded

My kids have both had the vaccine and I'm not arguing with you. I'm simply trying to correct or clarify the misconceptions you have about how the process of testing the vaccines works.

There are no misconceptions - just the knowledge that even a side effect as ‘rare’ as the AZ clotting issues would kill more children than Covid.

The only way to find out is to roll it out to children, who almost never need the benefit it offers. It’s all risk. If other people are fine with their kids being lab rats then I guess eventually we will know enough but we certainly don’t now.

MissConduct I think you have summed up my hesitancy on this topic with this sentence, which I am very much in agreement with:

"Rare events are just that. The fact that millions of doses of the AZ vaccine were given before the clotting issue came to light is just such a rare event. There's no way to find them without millions of people having the intervention"

This is why I would prefer my children not to be in the first couple of million or the first couple of months.

I'm happy to be called selfish or whatever names under the sun for that, I really am. And I have reasonable confidence that the Pfizer vaccine, after vaccinating millions of kids, will quite probably turn out to have minimal side effects or rare events. But when it comes to your kids, I need more than reasonable confidence. I need the same kind of confidence I have with things like measles mumps rubella meningitis polio etc (which, to be fair, are far more serious so the risk benefit analysis tips heavily in favour for me anyway).

I never thought I'd be someone cautiously holding back on a vaccine for my kids. I just don't regard myself as someone who is vaccine cautious (though obviously to an extent I am). I was signed on to a stage 3 vaccine trial. I have a flu vaccine every year. My kids have had every vaccine offered to them including HPV and flu each year.

But we have never before been in a situation where there's a new novel virus which is not considered to be a big risk to children that has had a potential vaccine candidate come to market in such a short time.

Anyway, it's watchful waiting for now, because it hasn't been approved here, it may be, it may not be, we shall see! And in time, perhaps, they will end up having it because at some point I will get more clarity on the best decision for them and it may well be that they have it.

Reading this with interest as DS2s school have emailed parents and students today advising the local hospital has offered spare Pfizer vaccine to any over 16s that would like it.

To reiterate something posted earlier, from Dr. Sean O'Leary, vice chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics' Committee on Infectious Diseases, and professor of pediatrics at the University of Colorado Medical Campus and Children's Hospital Colorado:

"Now, the part where that conversation about severity gets a little bit more complicated is yes, it is absolutely true that it's less severe in kids than it is in adults, and particularly older adults. But it's also not true to say that it's completely benign in kids. Fortunately, pediatric death is a fairly rare event. But when you look at the top 10 causes of death, on an annual basis, this year, we've had, depending on whose numbers you use, somewhere between 300 and 600 pediatric deaths from COVID-19 so far. That's probably an undercount. And that would fit it somewhere in the top 10, somewhere between like number 6 and number 9 in terms of causes of death for children.

So the point I'm making there is that yes, it's less severe, but it's still potentially a very severe disease. We've seen tens of thousands of hospitalizations already. So we do need a vaccine for children, not just to protect, not just to achieve herd immunity, but also to protect the children themselves."

And Watapalava - given that the UK is behind several other countries on coming out of lockdown, there is a lot to learn from the experience of countries who have been through what the UK is about to face.

Absolutely no chance. Raging I've been forced into getting it.

Rare events are just that. The fact that millions of doses of the AZ vaccine were given before the clotting issue came to light is just such a rare event. There's no way to find them without millions of people having the intervention

Then why not just limit the vaccine to children who are susceptible to COVID (eg have preexisting conditions or are on immunosuppressants) or live with caregivers that cannot be vaccinated?

Seems like otherwise healthy children should not be given something of such limited benefit to them. Personally I’d extend that line of thinking to under 25s but adults can make their own choices, naturally.