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?

We allow colds and flu to spread rapidly amongst children. How is Covid any different for this age group? Colds and flu are deadly for a very small number of children. It’s a risk we take. There is a very strong argument for building up a robust immune response by repeated infection as the human race has done to all novel virus since man first walked upright.
Modern medicine has massively weakened our resilience to new viruses. It’s not a nice thought that a large number of us wouldn’t have made it past infancy without antibiotics, and most of the childhood vaccinations, we are now seeing the results. We cannot start suddenly denying the life saving properties of vaccinations and other commonly used drugs. Talk to some of the elderly who may have been around in the 1950s when there was a polio epidemic. People couldn’t wait to vaccinate their children.

OP, big fat no from me. Think it's beyond abhorrent how we are treating kids.

@Angrymum22

We allow colds and flu to spread rapidly amongst children. How is Covid any different for this age group? Colds and flu are deadly for a very small number of children. It’s a risk we take. There is a very strong argument for building up a robust immune response by repeated infection as the human race has done to all novel virus since man first walked upright. Modern medicine has massively weakened our resilience to new viruses. It’s not a nice thought that a large number of us wouldn’t have made it past infancy without antibiotics, and most of the childhood vaccinations, we are now seeing the results. We cannot start suddenly denying the life saving properties of vaccinations and other commonly used drugs. Talk to some of the elderly who may have been around in the 1950s when there was a polio epidemic. People couldn’t wait to vaccinate their children.

Colds and flu have been around a long time.

Covid is a novel virus we know very little about.

What if covid turns out to be like polio and it has repercussions years or decades later?

What if that's more likely the younger you catch it?

100 deaths (with COVID on the death certificate, not just children with a positive pcr)

10,000 children ill long-term with long covid/post covid complications - ONS estimate. Other studies have shown that 14% of children who test positive will go on to have symptoms for over 15 weeks.

Since schools have had to go all in with no mitigations and numbers of infections have been incredibly high this term, the numbers of children with long covid and post covid complications will only increase.

From UCL
“Up to one in seven (14%) children and young people who caught SARS-CoV-2 may have symptoms linked to the virus 15 weeks later, suggest preliminary findings from the world’s largest study on long Covid in children, led by UCL and Public Health England researchers.”

Letting it rip through children increases the risk of illness, long covid and post covid complications.

By the way I’m having to put “post covid complications” as it seems to be a separate thing to long covid. Long covid is more extreme fatigue, headaches, loss of smell/taste etc. Post covid complications can be organ damage, inflammatory system problems and neurological issues. This don’t seem to fall under the banner of “long covid”, and aren’t well publicised or well understood. Especially by the JCVI.

@PrincessNutNuts

Vaccines don’t stop you getting covid

Yes they do.

Well, they don't. They make you less likely to catch and spread it, but they certainly don't stop it. I was vaccinated when I caught Covid from my vaccinated work colleague.

@frazzledquaver my DS is not going to die or end up in hospital with Covid.

I am not sure about the building up natural immunity argument as there seem varying studies showing wide differences in how long natural immunity lasts. More importantly (to me), there seems widespread consensus on vaccines being much less harmful than catching covid without a vaccine. There are far too many studies with links to organ damage, even in milder cases. There is also info on how covid ages the immune system. Of course deliberate mass natural infection of school communities and their families as per current govt policy is pretty sickening and crap for education too.

We let it happen here with chicken pox, but again, this is unusual among developed countries, who usually choose to protect their young people with the safe and available vaccination instead of save money and allow some preventable deaths in order to save some older people (I'm not kidding, you can see the justification publicly).

UK treads its own path on these things...

[quote Waxonwaxoff0]@frazzledquaver my DS is not going to die or end up in hospital with Covid.[/quote]
You cannot be certain about that.

You can think it highly unlikely, but there are no guarantees.

100 children is obviously very very sad, I’m in no way dismissing their deaths, but there are 11 million children under 16 in the U.K. Thats 0.0009% of all children. It’s a figure I can quite happily take my chances with.

Unfortunately, even minor illnesses can kill children. I’m always struck at this time of year by a local little boy who died of sepsis from an ear infection 😢 it was so shocking. You just can’t imagine an ear infection would kill you. But it can.

And thousands upon thousands of children are admitted to hospital each winter with respiratory illnesses. My DD’s been admitted in 2 winters in her 4 years of life. All stemming from basic colds & turning to brohncilitis. It is what it is. I won’t lock them away, life is for living.

@winterisaroundthecorner

I do find it mind boggling that anyone feels ok for children to get infected with illness we really don't know about, especially as a person/people who in the position of influencing whole country. We, as parents, didn't have any choice to get our children vaccinated like other countries did. And the reasoning behind is to ultimately protect adults, I feel sick. Children are our future. They may not contribute to economy etc now, but if they use our children who have many years ahead of them without thinking about implication to their future, they should be held accountable.

This 100%, we're going to end up with a burden of disability in children far higher than other countries who are ventilating classrooms, wearing masks etc.

@Bobholll

100 children is obviously very very sad, I’m in no way dismissing their deaths, but there are 11 million children under 16 in the U.K. Thats 0.0009% of all children. It’s a figure I can quite happily take my chances with.

Unfortunately, even minor illnesses can kill children. I’m always struck at this time of year by a local little boy who died of sepsis from an ear infection 😢 it was so shocking. You just can’t imagine an ear infection would kill you. But it can.

And thousands upon thousands of children are admitted to hospital each winter with respiratory illnesses. My DD’s been admitted in 2 winters in her 4 years of life. All stemming from basic colds & turning to brohncilitis. It is what it is. I won’t lock them away, life is for living.

But these are normal things that happen and can't be prevented. Covid is totally novel and can be prevented - there were far fewer kids ill and in hospital when more mitigations were used.

Definitely not. Also chicken pox can be dangerous for some children and adults.

Unbelievable that a committee in a democratic country could make decisions without taking the health implications of children into account.

www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/10/29/world/europe/uk-britain-covid-surge.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimesworld

Democracy has failed in this country.

Vaccines stop people catching covid every day.

They just don't stop it every time.

If your government's policies encourage high cases then the number of breakthrough infections will be a lot higher than if cases are low.

It's a percentage thing.

A small percentage of a big number is usually still a big number.

@lonelyplanet

Unbelievable that a committee in a democratic country could make decisions without taking the health implications of children into account.

Yep. It's pretty similar to if they said 'well, very few kids die of fires in schools, so let's not bother with fire safety or fire drills any more because that all costs money'.

This is effectively what they've done with covid. Abandoned all risk reduction FOR CHILDREN.

It's abhorrent and I can't understand why people aren't more up in arms about it.

Interesting opinion piece here sciencebasedmedicine.org/jcvi/

Sorry if this thread has already been posted but an interesting view on the situation:

mobile.twitter.com/ProfColinDavis/status/1454577545102376961

Good opinion piece Over 10,000 children have been hospitalized in England alone thus far, and according to news reports, over 100 children there have died, including “13 children dying in the seven weeks since schools reopened.” The death toll includes some children who would have been eligible for vaccination had they lived outside of the UK. The JCVI’s statement that “Children rarely develop severe disease or die of COVID-19” will be cold comfort to the families of these children.

Well, yes. Why not give people the choice? Parents have been denied a choice.

I would really like the members of the JCVI to be legally held to account for what they've done. But given the government hasn't been, I suppose it's unlikely (unless the government decides to make them the fall guy).

The quotes from Dingwall in particular are disturbing. Given how pro- death he seems, presumably he thinks we should also stop other vaccinations and go back to the days of many children dying in infancy. Or perhaps get rid of traffic laws or fire safety - both of which are designed to prevent harm. What's next? If we're doing this with covid, what's the next safety measure to protect children we'll get rid of? Seatbelts?

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.

I agree with this from a pp.

I'm angry at this, and also sick of lying twats who say the only choices are a) full lockdown or b) rampant infections.

well, very few kids die of fires in schools, so let's not bother with fire safety or fire drills any more because that all costs money

Bad news for you there, they’ve decided it’s ok to use Grenfell-style cladding on schools and have gone against fire safety advice and decided that schools don’t need sprinklers either.

This government will not spend money on children.

[quote lonelyplanet]Sorry if this thread has already been posted but an interesting view on the situation:

mobile.twitter.com/ProfColinDavis/status/1454577545102376961[/quote]
Yep, that thread just illustrates how nonsensical and idiotic the debate they were having was.

@noblegiraffe

well, very few kids die of fires in schools, so let's not bother with fire safety or fire drills any more because that all costs money

Bad news for you there, they’ve decided it’s ok to use Grenfell-style cladding on schools and have gone against fire safety advice and decided that schools don’t need sprinklers either.

This government will not spend money on children.

I'm upset to hear this but not surprised.

When are people going to wake up? If they'll do this with covid, they'll do it with other stuff too.

THEY DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR KIDS. THEY'LL ACTIVELY HARM YOUR KIDS IF IT ENRICHES THE 1%.

Having got away with it with Covid, they'll be looking for what else they can do.