Should we be worried about our children?

[Moonme]

I know several families that are having to isolate due to children being in contact with cases at school. It seems like the Government is going for a herd immunity strategy amongst the young. Should we be concerned about this? I know the risk of dying is super low but I’ve seen a few doctors on Twitter (respected UK Drs) saying we shouldn’t be playing fast and loose with a novel virus as we don’t know the long term impacts.
What are your thoughts?

@RedToothBrush

How about comparing Covid with flu?

AnyFucker

"Yes. I am worried.

About their education. About their mental health. About the increasing isolation and lack of safeguarding for children in violent homes. About the undiagnosed and unmonitored serious illnesses bubbling under. About their reducing ability to fight other infections than COVID.

Not about COVID itself. The country has collectively lost its fucking mind where that is concerned"

THIS! Totally agree with @AnyFucker and @PicsInRed too.

OP, I agree. Also this:
"But it’s not a binary choice, unfortunately. Throwing kids into the face of covid means some will get ill, with varying levels of seriousness*. Are we supposed to just cross our fingers and hope it’s not our kid? "

Cross your fingers and hope mentality. What a shitty situation.

But to me it seems that we could stay where we are now with the kids at school. We could remove the bubbles and isolating and just implement more testing so that there education isnt distrusted so much. But most of the lifting of restrictions which will occur - travel, large events, unlimited indoor socialising. Isnt really benefitting children. It’s more the adults that want these things. So the adults of the country and now being put ahead of the children. We are sacrificing the children’s health for the wants of the adults?

Even nightclubs are set to reopen, but I guess we all know how much they will benefit children’s mental health 🤔

If you want to go down the eric feigl-ding route of this where you end up scared of your own shadow, he was tweeting about how covid-19 stays in the guts of children for up to 36 days and how 70% of children showed no symptoms and how it was spread by faecal aresols.

At this point if you have kids, particularly kids under 6 and you aren't shaking like a leaf under a table clutching them tightly whilst rocking, you clearly aren't doing something right.

If thats true then the bottomline becomes you either do get on with things and yes hope you and yours are fine or you cut yourself off from the world somewhat indefinitely because there's no real way to protect your child and yourself by other means without vaccines and you are still taking a leap of faith that your child isn't going to be the one with the side effects either.

No its not polio. Its also not flu (and we don't fully understand the effects of either the vaccine nor herd immunity in children routes).

Either way i think we have all probably reached the point where we recognise that isolating yourself isn't possible for some, and even for those who it is it probably isnt a good idea either.

And unfortunately we have arrived at this junction where we have to be realistic about this.

I’m just trying to find out what will be expected for schools in September.

So with no restrictions for adults - the virus will be more prevalent.

Plans are not finalised, so how far will their be pressure on teachers to put new plans in place over the summer?

It’s unclear whether bubbles will go? But I think the isolation of the whole bubble if someone tests positive in that bubble won’t happen?

And I think they are considering mass PCR testing.

I’ve just been reading a bit about long Covid in children:

When researchers in Rome followed 129 kids (the median age was 11) who had been positively diagnosed with COVID-19, more than a half had at least one lingering condition after their supposed recovery. In those at least four months out, 14 kids, or more than 10 percent of the total, were still felled by three or more bothersome symptoms.

Australian researchers tracked 171 younger COVID-positive children (median age 3) and found that 8 percent reported post-COVID manifestations up to two months later. In this study, though, by six months all of them had recovered.

I don’t think anyone is rocking clutching their kids under a table, it’s just trying to figure out what to do for the best!

Exactly hornbill. Everyone accepts that children need to be educated and that most are happiest at school. Nobody is disputing that. But it’s the governments willingness to allow all our children to now be exposed to Covid that is alarming. Because the rate of Covid is rising but the restrictions are still being lifted

All these headlines about how the government are saying Britons can use their own judgement are a bit unfair. As the children don’t get to do that. The government have done it for them

@turquoisesol Yes. I looked at a couple of articles in the TES this morning, and there is not much clarity yet about plans for September, but quite a bit of speculation for how teachers are going to implement these plans.

Hopefully summer exposure will be minimal due to school holidays - and we’ll see what happens in September.

And I would hope that any concerns/potential long term effects from children catching Covid now - can be assessed over the summer.

There just seems to be a kind of bullish end of restrictions - ‘just get on with it now’ message from the government. Which will just completely minimise it in the minds of the public, who were done with restrictions anyway.

I will certainly be enjoying the summer holidays with my children though. But Ill keep checking what the scientists say!

@Turquoisesol

Exactly hornbill. Everyone accepts that children need to be educated and that most are happiest at school. Nobody is disputing that. But it’s the governments willingness to allow all our children to now be exposed to Covid that is alarming. Because the rate of Covid is rising but the restrictions are still being lifted

How do you ultimately do both though?

I'm geninuely not convinced that keeping kids away from childhood illnesses AS WELL AS covid-19 is a wise move. It has ramifications.

In terms of vaccines, realistically we will struggle to vaccinate school kids before the summer anyway because we do not have enough supplies to do so. Especially if we have to start booster programmes for vulnerable adults in September. And globally there is a valid argument that we need to put vaccines into other countries to prevent variants which ultimately can't be stopped (as Australia is starting to find out) protects our kids more in the long run.

Not to mention vaccination programmes over the summer holiday, will be costly and lead to kids falling through the cracks and deeply resented because of how it will further disrupt parents.

Realistically, you are looking at vaccinations in school in September AFTER parental consent as a best case option. This can probably be rolled out pretty quickly if we do go down that route.

Decisions on this possibly don't need to be made for a few weeks yet and I think there will be a fair few scientists looking to see where this Delta wave heads. Its already peaked in some areas, so thats what will be being kept in mind, that come September things could be on the decline anyway.

I'm of the hold fast and see how this goes first before we panic at this point.

Last year I was very much of the opinion we would definitely see a second wave, it was just a question of when and that was a worry because that wasn't taken seriously.

So I'm really not without concern or caution. I'm just a pragmatist and realist.

We do have to go into medium and long term planning with this. We can not stay in emergency measures indefinitely. Its psychologically a leap of faith to a certain extent, but I am very conscious of the unintended consequences of being over cautious being overlooked (of which there are many health related ones) and vaccines having draw backs particularly for younger people and children and there being an absence in data on this - there is stuff that is concerning and could have long term health consequences just the same as long covid. The question really is - are there more cases of serious side effects in children or long covid in children? Thats a difficult one to assess.

What worries me most on the whole suggest is where we start to get emotive language creeping in and overly dramatic comparisons with polio. This is where rational thinking has left the building and people are thinking with emotions not with logic and reasoning.

This needs to be thought out properly. We can't just talk about things in terms of covid. We can't just assume that vaccines are always better when it comes to covid. We can't carry on in the way we have been. We could get hit by another variant which the vaccine doesn't work for or we could get hit by a variant which is much worse for children. But that variant could originate from anywhere in the world - not just the UK.

This is all moving very fast. Where we will be in 6 weeks time is still open to debate.

We need to collect data, keep monitoring, be conscious of knock on effects and be open minded on this. Saying not yet to things like vaccinating kids when our population vaccine rate in adults is significantly higher than those going ahead with vaccinating children, is a reasonable point of view. Saying not yet to boosters for adults under 50 is a reasonable point of view. Not yet is not saying never. We are still trying to figure this out. We still have supply issues over vaccine availability and decisions will have to be made on the basis of most risk/need for some time yet as a result.

At some point we have to take that leap of faith and bite the bullet just to get on with things and I personally think we are at that point - where I think its being missold is on the premise that restrictions are gone forever. I think that we have to always keep that open. Stage 2 beckons.

Before Covid, children were exposed to all sorts of viruses and diseases at school. Illnesses that could potentially be much more dangerous for them than Covid is ever going to be.

My DD was hospitalised with pneumonia as a complication of flu a couple of winters ago (pre-Covid)

Now, thanks to isolations, their immune systems are under-exposed leaving them more vulnerable to other things.

We have got to stop this utter madness!

@curlyLJ

Before Covid, children were exposed to all sorts of viruses and diseases at school. Illnesses that could potentially be much more dangerous for them than Covid is ever going to be.

My DD was hospitalised with pneumonia as a complication of flu a couple of winters ago (pre-Covid)

Now, thanks to isolations, their immune systems are under-exposed leaving them more vulnerable to other things.

We have got to stop this utter madness!

This is actually very true. Hospitals at the moment are seeing an increase in hospitalisations (they would usually see in the winter) with children ill with bronchitis, high temperatures etc from other viruses they haven't been exposed too.

@Turquoisesol

Exactly hornbill. Everyone accepts that children need to be educated and that most are happiest at school. Nobody is disputing that. But it’s the governments willingness to allow all our children to now be exposed to Covid that is alarming. Because the rate of Covid is rising but the restrictions are still being lifted

The government has to make decisions on the basis of risk.

Who remains most at risk and of what?

The idea that the government is willing to expose all our children to covid is massively simplistic. It has a duty of care for all to do the best thing and balance the needs of all age groups.

Vaccine shortages and who is at risk of dying will remain the top priority. Then risks of harm in all shapes and forms - thats psychological and physical - from both covid and non covid causes.

That might very well mean that children are safer being 'exposed to covid' that the alternatives available. (I don't know what the data says - probably because we have an absence of data on this - though government may have more than the public do)

The trouble is we have got into this mindset where we can only see covid risk and aren't looking for risk from other sources which is highly relevant. Its not taking into account that risk for different ages vary and will change over time.

The issue is we look at this with fear and emotion rather than stepping back - like the government have to - and deciding whats best for everyone as a whole.

The idea that the government is deliberately putting children at unnecessary risk is very different to the one where the government is trying to minimise risk to all age groups in differing ways. I don't see that we are at the former, on the basis of the information available and the shortages of vaccines despite the hyperbole on this thread. I've not seen a compelling argument for it at all. I have seen a lot of inability to quantify and contextualise risk though.

If you want to go down the eric feigl-ding route of this where you end up scared of your own shadow, he was tweeting about how covid-19 stays in the guts of children for up to 36 days and how 70% of children showed no symptoms and how it was spread by faecal aresols

And i bet hes still on social media platforms

Very bad timing to be announcing this 'freedom day' for unrestricted drinking and nightclubbing and mask-burning, while more than quarter of a million children are locked at home in pointless unscientific self-isolation.

While at the same time, MHRA has approved a vaccine for over-12s, but the government/JCVI (government-appointed people, not independent) won't give it to them as they are not at risk of Covid, but still demands these children sit at home for 10 days if they are in the same year-group as a positive case.

The government and JCVI are corrupt, incompetent, science-denying shits

• in my opinion

Whilst the cabinet have enrolled themselves in the daily testing programme, and denied children access to it.

So they don't have to self-isolate if they sit on a plane next to someone with Covid, but pupils in a 250 year group have to self-isolate if someone they never sit in a classroom gets a positive test.

IMHO this government will rot in hell.

@EndSI

Whilst the cabinet have enrolled themselves in the daily testing programme, and denied children access to it.

So they don't have to self-isolate if they sit on a plane next to someone with Covid, but pupils in a 250 year group have to self-isolate if someone they never sit in a classroom gets a positive test.

IMHO this government will rot in hell.

Yes it’s tone deaf to the affects of multiple isolations on the physical and mental health of children not to mention their education!

And the knock on effects on parents having to continually have time off to look after them and the consequences in the workplace. To me it’s unsustainable ….

I agree the lack of thought re impact on children of repeated isolation is criminal

So - from ONS - the week ending 27th June - 3 per hundred thousand children were hospitalised with Covid from age 0 to 14. And then from age range 14 to 24 - 3 per hundred thousand were hospitalised.

And no deaths in under 14’s in week ending 18th of June.

Not sure whether you think that is high or not. For perspective -

Flu-
“ The cumulative rate of influenza admission was highest in the under 5 year olds and in the over 65s for influenza A(not subtyped). For influenza A(H3N2) the age groups with the highest rates were the under 5 year olds (41.2 per 100,000) and the over 65s (27.2 per 100,000) (Figure 16).”

RSV-
“Between week 40, 2019 and week 14, 2020, a total of 3,053 confirmed RSV cases (2,903 hospitalised to lower level of care and 150 admitted to ICU/HDU) were reported from 16 participating trusts. The rate of hospital admission (lower level of care) due to RSV peaked in week 51, 2019 at 5.3 per 100,000 trust catchment population, appearing slightly later than the peaks in previous 2 seasons (Figure 31). The highest rate (for hospitalisations to lower level of care) was among patients aged

I didn’t know one way or the other! - but thanks for the comparison @bumbleymummy. Just thought it would be good to look at the latest data, and see what happens over coming weeks.

Yep! It’s definitely good to see what it looks like in comparison to other respiratory viruses in children.