Vaccine for 5+

[NotTheBaby]

It’s on sky news now. Leaked document stating 5 year olds and above to be vaccinated from spring. I’m so hesitant to get my children done, when I couldn’t wait for mine. Why is this so much harder than it should be? Or am I just overthinking it?

@JassyRadlett of course I’m talking about only this vaccine

@NotTheBaby there are numerous articles on both vit d and obesity, including children and the impact on covid severity. A couple below -

Here’s a link to an article on vit d levels and mortality

www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/13/10/3596

Here’s a link to an article on link between obesity and covid severity in children
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34168067/

My children won't be having it ,my teen didn't and my primary age child won't be either

I will quite happily get my 9 yr old jagged if offered.

My 13 yr old has had his with no problems.

They are already vaccinating 5+ in some countries, just like with teens we are being cautious, the advantages to this approach is we will have international data before we open up the vaccine programme. Many families will be relieved as they wish to travel and currently only vaccinated passengers are welcome

[quote DayKay]@JassyRadlett of course I’m talking about only this vaccine

@NotTheBaby there are numerous articles on both vit d and obesity, including children and the impact on covid severity. A couple below -

Here’s a link to an article on vit d levels and mortality

www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/13/10/3596

Here’s a link to an article on link between obesity and covid severity in children
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34168067/[/quote]
The evidence for vitamin D is not as conclusive as you assume. Unfortunately like treatments such as HCQ and ivermectin, vit D has been jumped on by the anti-vaccine contigent, which has led to swathes of poor quality papers & takes in attempt to mislead (i.e, "the government doesn't want you to know vitamin D will cure/prevent COVID so big pharma can push jabs on you etc etc")

That paper in particular has serious issues and does not mean what you think it does;
-its a review that doesn't confer to any kind of guidelines regarding systematic reviews, leading to bias
-depends hugely on an pseudoscience aggregate website (similar to ivnmeta, the problems of which have been discussed before)
-why ignore RCTs (gold standard) and rely solely on observational evidence which cannot be used to infer causality?
-claims there is a point of "0% mortality"
-includes the ridiculous sentence we should "reverse the assumption that correlation does not equal causation"

Not definitive evidence supplementing vit D (and indeed this is already recommednded), but certainly not evidence of a causal protective effect specifically for coronavirus

sigh - important typo

Not definitive evidence against supplementing vit D (and indeed this is already recommednded), but certainly not evidence of a causal protective effect specifically for coronavirus

@JassyRadlett of course I’m talking about only this vaccine

No need for rude faces, it was a straightforward question. I’ve seen plenty on this thread suggesting that healthy people don’t need many more vaccines than just the Covid one.

I'd vaccinate my small child (not yet 5) as soon as I can. The risks from the vaccine are much lower than covid, even in this age group, and with covid rates so high, exposure is high (viral load matters) and catching it is all but inevitable.

7 children died from covid in one week in October according to ONS statistics. It's not mild for every child, yes the risks are low but a tiny percentage of a large number is still a larger number than a civilised society should be willing to accept. If there are to be no mitigations in schools, I'll vaccinate. I'd prefer mitigations and lower exposure to covid to be honest, but seems I don't have that choice.

I do however think that everyone should have a free choice and no-one should be forced to vaccinate their child - just as regular childhood vaccinations are all voluntary and kids can't - for example - be excluded from school if not vaccinated.

I'm betting that there are similar level risks from the other regular childhood vaccinations though. And some of them (e.g. Men B) are relatively new too and yet no outcry over that.

@ollyollyoxenfree I agree that the evidence is not conclusive. There have been other studies done which does suggest that vitamin d levels could be a contributing factor for many people. There are, of course other factors for many people. It’s still worth people boosting their levels if they’re low.

@JassyRadlett fair enough. I’ve seen people accuse others of being anti vaxxers if they have any opinion different from their own and thought that’s what you were implying.

P23 this public health England report. N antibody levels are lower in those who are infected following 2 doses of vaccine.

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1027511/Vaccine-surveillance-report-week-42.pdf
This study in Jama finds immunity lower in those vax immediately after infection rather than those >6 months from infection.
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34724027/

It is entirely possible vaccination of children with this vaccine will interfere with their natural immune response and be harmful. The Pfizer study looked at antibody levels only. I don’t care if my child has measured antibodies or not. I care if they get sick enough to be in hospital. Why not do a bigger trial with hospitalisation as the end point? Many countries are vaxing children but not as part of a placebo controlled trial so adverse effect rates will be unclear as some will say attributable to vaccine some not. There is no justification to vaccinate children without a much bigger trial to see if it actually benefits them not for 6 months but long term.

@Hotcoffee10

P23 this public health England report. N antibody levels are lower in those who are infected following 2 doses of vaccine.

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1027511/Vaccine-surveillance-report-week-42.pdf
This study in Jama finds immunity lower in those vax immediately after infection rather than those >6 months from infection.
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34724027/

It is entirely possible vaccination of children with this vaccine will interfere with their natural immune response and be harmful. The Pfizer study looked at antibody levels only. I don’t care if my child has measured antibodies or not. I care if they get sick enough to be in hospital. Why not do a bigger trial with hospitalisation as the end point? Many countries are vaxing children but not as part of a placebo controlled trial so adverse effect rates will be unclear as some will say attributable to vaccine some not. There is no justification to vaccinate children without a much bigger trial to see if it actually benefits them not for 6 months but long term.

It is entirely possible vaccination of children with this vaccine will interfere with their natural immune response and be harmful

As I said on a previous comment, you keep making these definitive statements, with no expertise, based on cursory glance of some papers you've found in a websearch @Hotcoffee10

The documents you are using to make these claims do not back up your statements

Please link the research that shows that vaccination of children provides long lasting protection against infection, equivalent or better than natural immunity. I would really like to see it.

And ideally research showing vaccination provides benefits to important hard outcomes such as hospitalisation, morbidity and mortality.

I am looking at data and suggesting a hypothesis that I think it is very important parents are aware of as it is they who have to make the decision. In what way do the findings I’ve cited not support the hypothesis I suggest? Vaccination generated immunity may be as good for kids as natural immunity with few drawbacks but there is literally no evidence of this.

@ollyollyoxenfree i think you need to look up the definition of a definitive statement. I said it was possible vaccination may interfere with the development of robust long lasting immunity in children. I did not say it definitively does, just that it may and there is some evidence to support this.
It is you who made a definitive statement that vaccinating provides better immunity and have given no evidence to support this view.

@Hotcoffee10

Please link the research that shows that vaccination of children provides long lasting protection against infection, equivalent or better than natural immunity. I would really like to see it.

And ideally research showing vaccination provides benefits to important hard outcomes such as hospitalisation, morbidity and mortality.

I am looking at data and suggesting a hypothesis that I think it is very important parents are aware of as it is they who have to make the decision. In what way do the findings I’ve cited not support the hypothesis I suggest? Vaccination generated immunity may be as good for kids as natural immunity with few drawbacks but there is literally no evidence of this.

I've never made any of those claims so why would I try and link to anything?

I've repeatedly said there is not enough evidence to make a decision, and that the MHRA/JCVI will be evaluating all data (not just cherry picked setences) to draw up an idea of the relative benefit/risk profile for this age group

A person on the internet, with no training or expertise in this area, cannot attempt to compete with teams of scientists who are systematically reviewing the evidence to answer this question

[quote Hotcoffee10]@ollyollyoxenfree i think you need to look up the definition of a definitive statement. I said it was possible vaccination may interfere with the development of robust long lasting immunity in children. I did not say it definitively does, just that it may and there is some evidence to support this.
It is you who made a definitive statement that vaccinating provides better immunity and have given no evidence to support this view.[/quote]
It is you who made a definitive statement that vaccinating provides better immunity and have given no evidence to support this view

Please link to any of my posts where I've said this?

My heart lifted when I saw there was hope of a vaccine for 5 year olds. I don’t want any more school disruptions

Well that is my hope that they will evaluate the data honestly and look at all possible benefits and drawbacks. The FDA in the US however acknowledged the Pfizer trial was underpowered to detect serious adverse events. But they went ahead and licensed it anyway. I think they did not have children’s best interests at heart when they made this decision whether politics or money was involved I don’t know. I only hope the JCVi will be brave and resist any pressure put on them. One does however have to wonder why the government are briefing the media about vaccination of 5+ before the JCVI has looked at the evidence on this and made any decision. Almost like it’s political and not with children’s best interests at heart.

Will it be the same dosage they will give to an adult?

@FreshFreesias

Will it be the same dosage they will give to an adult?

No, I already put a link above saying the dose is about ⅓rd of the adult dose

The Pfizer study looked at antibody levels only.

It… didn’t.

Are we looking at the same UKHSA report? Or the same JAMA paper?

@JassyRadlett

The Pfizer study looked at antibody levels only.

It… didn’t.

Are we looking at the same UKHSA report? Or the same JAMA paper?

Quite

@Hotcoffee10

It takes a good 3 hours to read a paper properly and check out the references. And that's for a single paper, for someone with a good understanding of the background.

Without doing this you're just taking sentences out of context and making a lot of assumptions and misunderstandings.

There must be hundreds to sift through on this subject in attempt to understand the literature - its a mammoth task which would equate to full-time jobs of a team of scientists.

www.theguardian.com/society/2021/nov/02/cdc-recommend-covid-19-vaccine-young-children USA giving a dose that's ⅓rd of adult dose

Nope, not happening!

I’ve seen people accuse others of being anti vaxxers if they have any opinion different from their own and thought that’s what you were implying.

No worries, it can be a total cesspit. I make a really strong point of trying to stick to facts only and asking questions to help my own understanding of others’ choices, but you’re not to know that!

(I make an exception to this principle for antisemites and Holocaust minimisation. Comes up way more often than you’d think.)

I haven’t linked the Pfizer study on kids that’s what I’m referring to. It did measure antibody levels only as an endpoint not infection or hospitalisation. I’ll try and find a link.

That Jama study is on adults with previous infection. They were double vax but the point is reinfection was less in those with >6 months between infection and vax than in those with a smaller gap. ?why, would vaccinating before 1st infection provide less good immunity. I’m not saying it does, just a hypothesis.
The Public health report doesn’t provide much detail but states that a specific antibody was lower in vax than natural infection group. I hope somebody is looking into this.