Infecting children to protect adults - yay or nay?

[PrincessNutNuts]

"There is an argument for allowing the virus to circulate amongst children
which could provide broader immunity to the children and boost immunity in
adults.”

From the JCVI minutes.

What about you?

Are you in favour of a policy of infecting children to protect adults?

Ok with children suffering illness, going to hospital and dying to protect adults?

Yay or nay?

Chickenpox has some nasty complications that aren't just death too, plus the risk of lifelong scarring. But we (as a country) are happy to expose our kids to that when there's an easily available and very effective vaccine that lots of other countries give as part of the standard vaccination programme, mostly due to cost and the effect of reducing shingles in older people. So there is already precedent for this kind of approach in this country.

All ages covid deaths chart. (England only)

I'm always startled at how many orange ones there are.

@Sean2001

I think it’s the only way.

Natural infection will give them fuller immunity. Better protection for life.

But has already killed several dozen.

And also gives "long covid" to some.

And threatens the stability of their education.

Hey! there's this vaccine! Maybe getting them all infected isn't the only way?

@DeliaDinglehopper

Really upsetting.

Agree. Especially because they’ve made the decision for us in regards to our children.

@Mosky

It's not chicken pox which as far as I know has no lasting effects on anyone who gets it as a child. Covid can cause serious complications in a minority of children.

Never heard of shingles?

@Mosky

It's not chicken pox which as far as I know has no lasting effects on anyone who gets it as a child. Covid can cause serious complications in a minority of children.

The chicken pox virus lies dormant in your nerve tissue and can reactivate as shingles later in life. Sounds like a lasting effect to me!

TBF, that's the policy in primary schools. No masks, no social distancing in classrooms, hand washing and cleaning tables is just about all that is being done to stop the spread. A few places have had to change measures due to sky-rocketing rates (I'm in one, things are different in school after the holidays, I have to wear a mask in corridors the children won't).

Speaking as a parent isn't current policy infecting school children ?

My son's school had sky high rates in September / early October (it apparently is at more average rates now) and it was basically masks and business as usual.

My child had covid over the summer and was fine which I know is luck but the pretense that there is a plan is very annoying.

@MorganSeventh

Think you need to provide the context and a link for that quote, otherwise you risk misleading people. I have taken a fair amounts of minutes for government bodies, and officials discussing that there is an argument for a course of action does not mean they are in agreement with that course of action, and certainly does not mean there is a policy to implement it. The JCVI is not a policy-making body; they are an Advisory Committee.

The context is given.

It's a quote from the minutes of the JCVI.

How is it misleading to ask people if they would be in favour of such a policy?

TBF, that's the policy in primary schools.

And secondary schools.

They’re now trying to get secondary school kids vaccinated with a level of urgency that certainly hasn’t been visible till now.

I'm quite relaxed about my young teens getting covid and would be equally relaxed if they were younger. This is because of the low risk covid poses. Likewise, I'm not worried about them being vaccinated (they have been). But both covid and the vaccine (slightly less so) do pose a really tiny risk to children and imo the lives of 100,000 83 year olds are not worth the life of a single twelve year old. I might be flamed for saying it but its true. If I had to choose between the life of my 85 year old mother and my 13 year old daughter it's a complete no brainer who I'd choose. The vaccination, if it carries ANY risk must be for the benefit of the child. The spread of the virus is much harder to control though so how exactly do we prevent children getting it? The consequences of locking down super hard (which we would need to do to stop the spread) are probably worse for children than covid.

@noblegiraffe

It seems odd that when they were deciding whether or not to offer the vaccine to 12-15 year olds there was so much emphasis on the fact that it had to be about whether it was of benefit to them, and not to adults around them (so protecting grandma wasn't allowed to be considered as a reason to vaccinate) and yet here they are merrily discussing infecting children with covid in order to protect adults.

It seems to me like they knew what they wanted the decision to be and worked backwards from that.

Yes, this. Highly dodgy.

I hope that parents of children who got really ill and died (and yes, there was a child who died on the day she was due to be vaccinated, and she didn't have the option earlier partly because of JCVI) who sue these so called experts.

No other country is treating children as collateral damage. None. They should hang their heads in shame with this comment. I don't care in what context it was made, what this country has done regarding children (particularly CEV children) is morally wrong on every level.

@PrincessNutNuts

It's 101 child covid deaths now I believe.

And 10,000 children hospitalised.

I don't know how many children have died of covid or been hospitalised with covid since the JCVI had this meeting.

Yes, now wouldn't that be interesting. Might be worth posing that question to Indie Sage.

The comment is pretty shitty and doesn’t make sense anyway.

I mean, I know ourpandemic response has been woeful and I keep hoping it will get better as time goes on.

But it doesn’t. Fucking hell.

Both mine had it and had far worse colds . So they will have immunity as if they were vaccinated . The kids didn’t pass to either of us . Seeing as the vaccine doesn’t stop you getting it anyway if children get it with minimal impact then surely that’s not a bad thing

Unfortunately like with any virus some will sadly be more affected but this is the same as one poster pointed out with many virus’s

I think chicken pox is a very good comparator actually. It’s an illness which is usually mild(ish) for most children, with more serious complications for a very small minority. As a society we have been perfectly happy with the approach that we don’t routinely vaccinate in the U.K. and rely on everyone developing natural immunity (or paying for vaccination). We also know that natural immunity is likely to offer a greater duration of protection than immunisation.

We know that covid is (mostly) a mild illness for children, and we don’t currently have an appropriate vaccine for children. Allowing all children to get it would help enormously with protecting vulnerable adults.

I don’t know if mine have had covid yet - we might have had it early in the pandemic, but we haven’t had positive pcr tests. Im sort of hoping we might get it over with at some point.

Though I seem to remember them saying at a recent Indie Sage that the number of hospitalisations of children was higher than at any other point in the pandemic. Almost like they removed all the things that they could do in school to prevent transmission which worked to protect children before....

What the hell are children thinking? Before they were told they had to isolate / bubble etc to protect everyone including themselves. Now the adults have been vaccinated and a large number are abandoning masks etc - so many must feel utterly abandoned by adults.

And if they look abroad so many countries with ventilation (e.g. NYC where you can check the ventilation status of your child's classrooms), air filtration, masks etc and doctors discussing how to protect kids. Vaccinations being rolled out as fast as possible. One day they'll read these minutes.

There is a vaccine for 5-12 year olds, it is made by Pfizer and has been approved in the United States of America. Except that there it may soon become compulsory to be vaccinated to go to school. Just as it is now semi compulsory for 12-15 year olds to be vaccinated in France because without a pass sanitaire you cannot engage in many leisure activities anymore and testing has become expensive.
I would suggest the U.K. government approves the Covid vaccines following normal legal processes and offers all parents a choice, no compulsion, just choice. It worked for the adult population to do that in the U.K. and so should work for children thereby causing minimum resentment either way.

thereby causing minimum resentment either way.

You haven’t seen the news stories of anti-vaxxers harassing children outside schools then? 3 children were injured in one protest.

@HalloweenScrooge

I think chicken pox is a very good comparator actually. It’s an illness which is usually mild(ish) for most children, with more serious complications for a very small minority. As a society we have been perfectly happy with the approach that we don’t routinely vaccinate in the U.K. and rely on everyone developing natural immunity (or paying for vaccination). We also know that natural immunity is likely to offer a greater duration of protection than immunisation.

We know that covid is (mostly) a mild illness for children, and we don’t currently have an appropriate vaccine for children. Allowing all children to get it would help enormously with protecting vulnerable adults.

I don’t know if mine have had covid yet - we might have had it early in the pandemic, but we haven’t had positive pcr tests. Im sort of hoping we might get it over with at some point.

well, no, because children getting covid could then pass it on to vulnerable adults. Vaccinating as many people as possible would be more effective if you want to reduce hospitalisations etc.

@noblegiraffe - I did indeed see that- but on the whole, Covid anti vaxx sentiment is minimal in England compared to many other countries. Adult vaccination rates attest to that.
Persons threatening and injuring children should be dealt with by normal legal processes involving police and judiciary, as appropriate. Media honing in on a few protests doesn’t mean much in this country, the media in England/GB is of a certain ilk.
There is no history in England of compulsory vaccination or ID cards so forget Covid certificates. Just offer all parents a choice for children 5 upwards once vaccine approved.

Media honing in on a few protests

I think the vast majority of secondary heads reported issues.

[quote Incognito22333]@noblegiraffe - I did indeed see that- but on the whole, Covid anti vaxx sentiment is minimal in England compared to many other countries. Adult vaccination rates attest to that.
Persons threatening and injuring children should be dealt with by normal legal processes involving police and judiciary, as appropriate. Media honing in on a few protests doesn’t mean much in this country, the media in England/GB is of a certain ilk.
There is no history in England of compulsory vaccination or ID cards so forget Covid certificates. Just offer all parents a choice for children 5 upwards once vaccine approved.[/quote]
Yep but they've been denying us a choice for 12+ for arguably the most critical period, I'm expecting more of the same.

@Sean2001

I think it’s the only way.

Natural infection will give them fuller immunity. Better protection for life.

That isn’t true at all.

I saw an interview yesterday from Samuel McConkey who (amongst other things) is a Consultant in General Internal Medicine, Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine in Ireland.

He said that a child getting COVID infection would likely have partial immunity for 6-8 weeks.

I was horrified.

So we are witnessing mass infection of children for nothing more than partial immunity for a few weeks?! Risking possible long term ill health for thousands of children or possible death?

I think it’s criminal that mass infection of children is not only being allowed but actively encouraged (by the changes in contact rules and no mitigations in schools). The 12-15 year olds should have been vaccinated in the summer holidays and more mitigations put in place for primary schools.

Deliberately infecting them, or trying to, by encouraging them to spend time with someone known to have Covid — no.

Giving them the vaccine, if eligible, and child is able to consent (or is too young to consent) — yes.

If the child is eligible and old enough to choose not to have it — then let them catch it. I’d do all I could to persuade them to have the vaccine first though.

The children not eligible for a vaccine I would encourage to be “reasonably careful”. In other words: don’t let them mix with a known Covid-19 infection, encourage washing hands, coughing into elbow etc, play outside as much as possible. The basic stuff that should be done anyway.