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?

Under 5s don’t get the flu vaccine do they? (Trying to remember when mine first had it, and I think it was in primary.) Now, that’s not me saying “but covid is worse than flu!!” Just idly being grateful that kids do get a flu vaccine so thankfully the numbers aren’t higher, and wondering if that’s why the incidence of flu is comparatively higher in under 5s. It’s comforting that - at least for flu* - the vaccine is available.

*depends on if they predict the right strain of course.

I thought the flu vaccine was for 2+.

I think it’s available to ages 2 and up. It’s the high incidence in that age group that was one of the deciding factors in offering it to them.

@EndSI

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

Which members of the JCVI do you think are anti science out of curiosity? Here's the list of members to help you choose:

Professor Andrew Pollard, Chair (University of Oxford)
Professor Lim Wei Shen, Chair COVID-19 immunisation (Nottingham University Hospitals)
Professor Anthony Harnden, Deputy Chair (University of Oxford)
Dr Kevin Brown (Public Health England)
Dr Rebecca Cordery (Public Health England)
Dr Maggie Wearmouth (East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust)
Professor Matt Keeling (University of Warwick)
Alison Lawrence (lay member)
Professor Robert Read (Southampton General Hospital)
Professor Anthony Scott (London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine)
Professor Adam Finn (University of Bristol)
Dr Fiona van der Klis (National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, Netherlands)
Professor Maarten Postma (University of Groningen)
Professor Simon Kroll (Imperial College London)
Dr Martin Williams (University Hospitals Bristol)
Professor Jeremy Brown (University College London Hospitals)

Thanks @ATieLikeRichardGere and @bumbleymummy that’s really good. Well, good that it’s offered, not great that under 5s still have higher rates.

This all day long: "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"

@User5827372728

My friends 4 year old has had to isolate 40/70 days.

🤯

I’m worried about my kids. We don’t know the long term effects of this virus. Yet kids are dumped into schools maskless, with no attempt at improving ventilation or other mitigations. They should be trying to reduce transmission in schools and offer vaccinations when possible. In my opinion, school kids are herd immunity guinea pigs at the moment.

I worry too.

There was a post on Twitter saying it was madness to allow kids to catch a disease that’s nee, and that as yet we don’t know the long term side effects of.

@Regulus they will be exposed to it vaccinated or not! We all will? Unless you are a hermit, you will be exposed to this virus over the coming months and years. Pretty much everyone will, vaccinated or not! Just because you are vaxx does not mean you won’t still have some effects from the actual virus. Kids don’t get as bad symptoms unvaxxed. Hopefully you won’t get as bad symptoms if you are vaxxed. But you will still be exposed- your immune system will still have to deal with covid!

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow

I worry too.

There was a post on Twitter saying it was madness to allow kids to catch a disease that’s nee, and that as yet we don’t know the long term side effects of.

We are all going to catch it- vaxx or not! Your immune system will have help fighting it but you will still have ‘caught it’!

My take on it for my one year old is that he will almost certainly be exposed to covid by the time he is at an age where he can be vaccinated regardless of what mitigation measures are in place (and actually he’s already had covid anyway). Antibody testing suggests that around 25% of children have already had it. There is therefore no point to trying to slow down the rate of spread so that he might catch it a bit later than he would have. It’s better that he gets it as young as possible while he is unlikely to be seriously ill so that he starts building up immunity. For children that young covid is just going to be a fact of life.

[quote OnTheBrink1]@Regulus they will be exposed to it vaccinated or not! We all will? Unless you are a hermit, you will be exposed to this virus over the coming months and years. Pretty much everyone will, vaccinated or not! Just because you are vaxx does not mean you won’t still have some effects from the actual virus. Kids don’t get as bad symptoms unvaxxed. Hopefully you won’t get as bad symptoms if you are vaxxed. But you will still be exposed- your immune system will still have to deal with covid![/quote]
That's true in this country, but not in many, many others. Where they actually did proper test and trace, proper mitigations, and controlled the virus (and as a result have better economies). In those countries there have been hundreds instead of thousands of deaths and similarly low levels of the population actually catching covid.

We got the virus low after the lockdown earlier this year, we could still have adopted that approach: we still could.

i reject an approach which infects almost the entire next generation of this country, while other countries protect their children.

If covid causes brain damage, as recent studies suggest it might even for mild cases of disease, this unneccessary recklessness at the behest of the Tory disaster capitalists will cause our nation to suffer for decades. We will be worse off than many, many other countries. And our children will ask us why they were uniquely (in international terms) let down by the adults in charge.

@AnyFucker

So's Polio

COVID is not comparable to polio

How do you know?

How do you know it's not an autoimmune disease?

Some of the most effect treatments we have for covid are steroids.

The worst phase of covid is usually not in the first few days when the viral load is highest, but after inflammation has had time to build up.

How do you know there won't be a post covid syndrome that kicks in decades later? Like Polio.

Time machine?

Agree with theemperorhasnoclothes. I don’t know how people can be so confident that Covid doesn’t affect children. People say this all the time to me irl and I just think, but we don’t actually no yet though do we?

How many of us those havent been in some kind of fairly close contact now with someone who was positive?

I didn’t use to be worried....

But I’m a children’s nurse and we are seeing a definite increase in the number of children being admitted with Covid, some of whom are very, very sick

Where?

Only asking because in our area, most of the people in hospital are over 70. Numbers of young people in hospital haven’t really increased in recent weeks and figures are still much lower than they were back in April.

@Turquoisesol

Agree with theemperorhasnoclothes. I don’t know how people can be so confident that Covid doesn’t affect children. People say this all the time to me irl and I just think, but we don’t actually no yet though do we?

Did you see the results of the recent study into the impact on children?

www.bbc.com/news/health-57766717

www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-689684/v1

www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.01.21259785v1

Both preprints, but still, it looks postive.

Do they mention Long Covid at all? Thousands of British children have had it for more than a year now.

Or what % of the deaths had no known health conditions?

Or that what was true in covid year 1 with wild type or alpha might not hold true with a new variant?

Or that child covid hospital admissions are rising faster this wave?

And that no one knows the long term effects of covid infection. Because no one can.

Or that just being off sick from school for a few weeks with a temperature and chills and a banging head are bad enough for a child, and surely it's our job as parents to protect our babies from suffering if we can?

It’s the long term impact that concerns me. Many viruses stay dormant in you immune system and come back when you are run down.

@Babdoc

Well there are only two options for children, OP. Herd immunity or vaccination. Take your pick.

I agree, but many seem to believe there's a third option. Endless suppression, a lifetime of eternal restrictions and relentless focus on controlling the virus.

@Turquoisesol

It’s the long term impact that concerns me. Many viruses stay dormant in you immune system and come back when you are run down.

I don't believe that's true at all.

@Babdoc

Well there are only two options for children, OP. Herd immunity or vaccination. Take your pick.

Well my 16yo ds is fully vaccinated and I'm pleased he had that option over natural immunity.

Although it's questionable if he had it last March as he was very tried for a few days and couldn't get off sofa with a very low temp and then I caught it and was ill for weeks on end.