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?

@theemperorhasnoclothes- so what are you saying? Mandatory Covid vaccines for 5 year olds? 12 year olds? Neither masks or vaccines are mandatory for adults in this country. The flu vaccine is a spray. It is much harder injecting kids. Once we get the vaccine in tablet form it could become easier.
Vulnerable children are offered the vaccine if 12 plus. The Mhra needs to get on with approval for 5-12 year olds for those who need it.

I don't really understand what your title means OP.

Infecting children to protect adults ...

If children get Covid adults are protected by vaccination. I know people still catch Covid after being vaccinated but they are protected nonetheless from getting ill badly. So why would we be infecting children to protect adults, if adults are already protected ...

And even if kids are vaccinated - they'll still catch Covid - and -

So who is meant to be protecting who?

Why should kids have to get infected every few months if adults don't?

Why are people saying that they’ll be infected every few months? Several studies have shown lasting immunity in the majority of people, low rates of reinfection and even lower rates of more serious reinfections.

@Incognito22333

Well actually my son got shingles last year after having Covid (he had chicken pox as a one year old). It was very painful for him. My elder two had chicken pox naturally and it was so annoying I had my younger two vaccinated privately, at my own cost. I am not sure chicken pox is milder than Covid for the vast majority of children. Chickenpox is pretty unpleasant. The only argument I ever saw that seemed to make sense for chicken pox was for girls having naturally might give more of a lifelong immunity than a vaccine, in case they catch chickenpox wildly during pregnancy if the vaccine had “expired”.

I have a child who might be vulnerable if he gets chickenpox, so we managed to get him vaccinated - this was over 10 years ago, and boy was it difficult to organise in the UK!

We were told that we should get a booster when he was a teenager - but when he was tested for chickenpox antibodies (because of another issue) he had about 130 times as many as needed to consider him immune. So clearly, antibodies from vaccination do not always wane with time, and it can be very effective for long term protection.

It is also possible, unusually, to get chickenpox more than once, after natural infection.

"According to the CDC, the shot is about 98 percent effective when given in two doses – which means a few vaccinated children will still get chicken pox. But kids who get chicken pox after being vaccinated will have milder symptoms, fewer blisters, a lower fever, and a quicker recovery."

More to the point kids will have to be vaccinated every 6 to 12 months for the rest of their lives won't they? Who wants that?

not necessarily, we need to see how they respond to the first 2 doses; they may be more effective than in adults, for example

So clearly, antibodies from vaccination do not always wane with time, and it can be very effective for long term protection.

Vaccinated people are having their immunity ‘boosted’ by exposure to widely circulating chickenpox.

From Tom Calver at the Sunday Times:

From Tom Calver at The Sunday Times:

"Nearly half of the current caseload is among under-20s."

If childhood covid infection causes long term health consequences then it's a disaster for everyone. A whole generation could be plagued by ill health, be unable to work and unable to look after ageing parents in the future.

@containsnuts

If childhood covid infection causes long term health consequences then it's a disaster for everyone. A whole generation could be plagued by ill health, be unable to work and unable to look after ageing parents in the future.

I think the same about vaccine long term consequences. We don’t have evidence yet for that either.

"Nearly half of the current caseload is among under-20s."

And dropping by the looks of things :) Good to see!

I don’t believe for a second that the long term side effects of the vaccine will ever be greater than the long term side effects of covid itself. The rate of infection amongst secondary school age children, imvho, is clear evidence of the reckless insanity of ensuring that the group mixing indoors all day, every day in the largest numbers for weeks on end in the build up to winter is the largely unvaccinated group. If the decision makers gave the slightest toss about school disruption, they would never have walked into this situation. So I can easily believe it could have been a deliberate policy to help boost adult immunity before adult vaccine effectiveness waned too much.

@Walkaround - “ I don’t believe for a second that the long term side effects of the vaccine will ever be greater than the long term side effects of covid itself.” Great that that is your belief, but you cannot force it on anyone else.
Of course this is anecdote but 27 of my DD’s friends recently tested positive for Covid. Not one even had a temperature or felt unwell. Of the 27 2 had a runny nose as the only symptom. Most of them very frustrated having to spend 10 days in their rooms away from their friends and not allowed in school. It is most likely that will have had a more significant impact on them personally than the virus itself. They all say that. Perhaps we should start a website of all teenagers who have tested positive for Covid and what their experiences were. Despite sitting with a lot of these friends my DD did not get Covid, she had it last year. She is now reluctant to have the vaccine despite me “working on her”. In her own opinion it is pointless because none of her friends had any actual illness from the virus and her friends who have had the vaccine had a sore arm, a few a temperature, felt worse after that.

I get why people don't want school closures and isolations but I can't understand why there's so much resistance against wanting to make schools healthier places in general with improved hygiene and ventillation, outdoor learning and more focus on nutrition etc. These would have loads of benefits, not just re. covid.

Young people who were initially symptomless can get serious post-viral complications and organ impacts. COVID is complicated and we understand it very little.

@containsnuts

I get why people don't want school closures and isolations but I can't understand why there's so much resistance against wanting to make schools healthier places in general with improved hygiene and ventillation, outdoor learning and more focus on nutrition etc. These would have loads of benefits, not just re. covid.

I agree.

And with quarter of a million kids off for covid reasons some weeks, education is still being massively disrupted even if all schools or whole schools aren't closed yet.

“Even if all schools or whole schools aren’t closed yet” - they are not going to close schools again. It is one long peak which started in August and numbers will eventually come down. It is only if there is a mutant strain (very unlikely) or kids are reinfected literally every 6-7 weeks that there will be a problem - in which case they would need to vaccinate most kids with the required number of doses tbc to prevent reinfection.
“but I can't understand why there's so much resistance against wanting to make schools healthier places in general with improved hygiene and ventillation, outdoor learning and more focus on nutrition etc.” - improved hygiene needs cleaning staff primarily - but I agree they could get kids more involved in cleaning themselves. England isn’t the cleanest country, same applies to hospitals. In some private schools this is happening - kids are cleaning desks themselves etc after every lesson. Nutrition is poor in UK based on societal norms - it is not really simply a school’s job to feed children. Healthy eating habits are primarily formed at home through money and education and advertisements/companies need to be regulated in what they sell. Schools simply cannot be responsible for everything. You do not get these high expectations of schools/teachers in most other countries. Teachers are there to teach not to feed/solve your child’s psychological issues/safeguarding/gang problems/Covid track and trace etc. There is a political clash in this country between the teaching profession and Tory government that has to go. Education and health are far too politicised.

@Incognito22333 - I work in a school, so am more aware of the problem cases than you. Also, with vaccination there would be fewer people getting covid, even asymptomatically, so fewer 10-day isolations. I am not impressed by playing Russian roulette with how ill my kids might be when they are in years 11 and 13, either - they ought to have had the right to have been double vaccinated by now, imvho, not wondering about finishing their exam syllabus, being well enough to take their mocks, being allowed into school to take them etc, etc.

@rrhuth

Young people who were initially symptomless can get serious post-viral complications and organ impacts. COVID is complicated and we understand it very little.

It's this that concerns me most. It's also never mentioned by those who see nothing wrong with not trying to protect kids at all.

Also, lots of 40-something teachers whose vaccine immunity is waning and no boosters planned. We need teachers in schools, not off with covid.

It's weird for a country that professes to value education and educators...almost as if it was just words and not action

@Incognito22333

“Even if all schools or whole schools aren’t closed yet” - they are not going to close schools again. It is one long peak which started in August and numbers will eventually come down. It is only if there is a mutant strain (very unlikely) or kids are reinfected literally every 6-7 weeks that there will be a problem - in which case they would need to vaccinate most kids with the required number of doses tbc to prevent reinfection. “but I can't understand why there's so much resistance against wanting to make schools healthier places in general with improved hygiene and ventillation, outdoor learning and more focus on nutrition etc.” - improved hygiene needs cleaning staff primarily - but I agree they could get kids more involved in cleaning themselves. England isn’t the cleanest country, same applies to hospitals. In some private schools this is happening - kids are cleaning desks themselves etc after every lesson. Nutrition is poor in UK based on societal norms - it is not really simply a school’s job to feed children. Healthy eating habits are primarily formed at home through money and education and advertisements/companies need to be regulated in what they sell. Schools simply cannot be responsible for everything. You do not get these high expectations of schools/teachers in most other countries. Teachers are there to teach not to feed/solve your child’s psychological issues/safeguarding/gang problems/Covid track and trace etc. There is a political clash in this country between the teaching profession and Tory government that has to go. Education and health are far too politicised.

Kids don’t have time for cleaning. And this disease is primarily airborne so how is wiping a desk going to help

Seriously, have a word with yourself.

Other countries don’t have the same expectations of teachers because they don’t have such shitty levels of poverty like this country does. Schools are left to pick up the pieces of failing governments. Who cannot even muster up the energy to ensure that people can be healthy and earn enough to support themselves.