Dancing with tiers in my eyes, Weeping for the memory of a life gone by

[dancemom]

New thread, a very appropriate title I feel ...

I have slight niggling worry about it too Aurea
But I also worry about future complications from COVID as it's a new disease and we don't know enough about it's long term impact

@titsintiers

I think we should focus on vaccination in less developed countries before kids. It doesn't sit right with me that there's not more focus of discussion on this.

I agree...

My understanding is that the JCVI has deferred to the four Chief Medical Officers to consider the wider implications of vaxing 12-15s as educational disruption, benefits to the whole community etc wasn't in their remit. I reckon it'll be offered very soon though will be too late for lots of 12-15s as so many are testing positive atm

I don't envy parents of 12-15YOs. Not an easy decision for many people I'd think.

We vaccinate babies at weeks old. What's the bid deal with vaccinating 12-15 year olds?

@Aurea yes. I agree. Big decision for my child.

And I also agree with @titsintiers. It’s pretty obscene for wealthy countries to be vaccinating children when actual vulnerable people across the world need vaccinated.

I also don’t really get why people want their kids vaccinated to protect elderly relatives as it doesn’t appear to stop transmission and the elderly are protected by their own vaccinations.

@WouldBeGood my DS is 11 so I don't have this decision to make but if he was 12 I would get him vaccinated I think. The vaccine doesn't stop transmission but does reduce it (think up to about 60% but I may be wrong). Also I would rather he had the vaccine than got covid because it's so prevalent he will definitely get it at some point. I get that it's likely to be mild symptoms he has but long covid may be an issue and I'd like to avoid that for him.
Also I don't want him to miss more school time through sickness. If the vaccine reduces transmission then kids won't be off with sickness as much.
Finally we already give our children the rubella vaccine which offers no protection to them but protects women in wider society.
I get that it's not an easy decision though and I may change my mind if/when the time comes.

@Horehound

We vaccinate babies at weeks old. What's the bid deal with vaccinating 12-15 year olds?

Eh, who's baby has had a COVID vaccine???
It's unlicensed for under 12s so I doubt a baby anywhere has had it.
We vaccinate babies against tetanus, polio, whooping cough etc as they are all serious conditions if baby catches them.
Those vaccines been around for decades.are licensed for use in babies, and jcvi recommends them.

@WouldBeGood vaccination reduces the chance of infection and thus transmission.

I realised how precarious the whole situation was with my DPs when I had covid symptoms the day after visiting them, even though I'd done a negative LFT before going.

Thankfully test was negative but I genuinely believe that had it been positive my DPs ( or specifically my DM) would not see us again and if they'd caught it my DMs anxiety is of such a level, that even if the covid effects hadn't been great, more than likely there would be a different type of medical issue arising as a result.

Seeing us is the only face to face interaction DF is allowed by DM due to other medical conditions and age, she wants to keep him "safe" although she goes out herself.

It's not like DS15 is desperate to spend time with his GPs anyway but it would be good if he could see them with less of a risk/benefit quandary.

I agree it would be a difficult decision for parents of 12-15 yo, and in some ways I'm therefore pleased it's been taken out of their hands (for now at least). I don't doubt that the vaccine is "safe" - as far as we know now, and there would be some benefits (in terms of reducing their/ others anxiety to be around them, and reduce the risk of disrupted schooling at least). But it doesn't seem to be as "safe" as other childhood vaccines to the individual child, and also the benefit isn't as great in reducing the impact of potential serious illness to the child. If it was left to the parents, that's a really hard decision to make against expert advice. And if there were a political push to promote vaccination in that age, it would make things even more tricky.

Personally, I acknowledge I'm no expert and am willing to defer to those that are in these kind of things. So if the JCVI/ NHS/ gov say "we think you should have this", I generally say "OK, go on then...", and I don't go round looking for reasons I shouldn't. That may be very careless and blasé, but I tend to think I wouldn't know who else to trust... If I go to Google I'd tend to focus on "official" websites anyway, and while I may look at alternative views, so many of them are bonkers and I trust any obvious issues would have been addressed by the trials/ data reviews etc anyway. But in this case, we have the experts saying "on balance, we don't think this is a good idea for otherwise healthy children" - and potentially the governments (and therefore NHS) overruling this and saying "despite what they've said, we think it is a Good Idea" and presumably pushing the vaccine programme through the usual channels. It just seems a way of undermining expert decision and creating doubt among the population! (oh well, the experts didn't come up with the decision we wanted, so we're going to convene a committee of different experts and ask them again...). I realise they are making the decision with different weights on different risks/benefits - but it just doesn't sit well to me.

Happily, DS is under 12 so it's not something we have to think about for a while...

Oh haudyourwheesht - thanks for your comment on the names thread . I've just seen the notification I got and don't want to reactivate the thread which seems to have has tailed off naturally now - but I'm glad you like it! It's not really "my" name anyway - I stole it off someone who admitted to being a bit of a resilience wanker on the railing thread, when everyone was railing against being told to "look on the bright side", "count your blessings" "start a thankfulness diary" and other such wankery, over lockdown. Obviously, they meant they found some of those kind of MH tools useful to them - but the phrase just tickled me

I agree with what you're saying @ResilienceWanker .
They interviewed Linda Bauld on the radio this morning and she was saying she found the JCVI outcome re 12-15s astounding and of course one had to consider the other factors.
Even if they do go ahead now, I can't imagine that take up rate will be high.

I agree with you @ResilienceWanker.

It’s ironic that we are constantly being told they are “following the science” but only the science that suits their agenda, it seems.

@sartorius where did I state babies got the covid vaccine? I meant vaccines in general and all the ones you listed had to start somewhere to before it came "the norm". I also didn't state we need to vaccinate babies but if we can vaccinate them then I really don't see the logic of the covid one being a concern.

Vaccines are actually relatively simple mechanisms and since there have been corona viruses around for many years there will have already been research and development begun on them. It's not like last year it was all of a sudden "oh let's look Into and develop a vaccine quickly" there would have been some knowledge on it already.

It's not like I don't know anything about them. I worked at GSK for years and my husband is an analytical chemist for vaccines..

You should maybe read the advice, and research into it, by paediatricians. And, indeed, the JCVI.

If your only reason for wanting 12-15 vaccination is to quell anxiety in 3rd parties then I think that is misguided. I know people who are vaxxed and have already had Covid and whose children have already had Covid. If anything they are the most anxious and the most keen to continue restrictions and testing and isolating school contacts.

rookie even if your DS were vaccinated I suspect it would make no diff to your DM just as you being vaxxed and testing before visiting has not.

Their advice is "The JCVI has advised that the health benefits from vaccination are marginally greater than the potential known harms."

Basically it's "it's better than the known risks but we don't want to make a concrete decision because if something does go wrong we don't want anyone to come back on us and give us jip"..

I imagine a lot of time, money and effort will be spent on the decision which will end up being "if your 12-15 year old wants to have the vaccine, let them."

I agree that it's weird that the JCVI hasn't actually definitely said yes or no. Well, they kind of said no, not at the moment but pointed to their limited brief. I assume that's an unusual type of statement from JCVI? I wondered about issues of liability too, as the UK govt got vaccines quickly, partly because they agreed to waive the manufacturer's liability (and paid more than the EU did).

It's at odds with loads of other countries.

With the luxury of not being a parent of a child in this age group I think I'd like to see parents being given the choice. And fwiw it seems a pity the JCVI hasn't managed to make a decision before schools go back.

The other thing that makes me twitchy is that the vaccines' licence is for emergency use only. I'm not sure jabbing kids who generally don't fall very ill with Covid is classed an emergency, especially as the risk of transmission still exists with the jab. (NB I am fully Vaxxed myself).

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/28/uk-emergency-approval-covid-vaccine-breakthrough

Looks like Chris Whitty is overruling it in England so no doubt we will follow.

For Unis vaccinating hasn't made it any more likely that students will get normal experience. Latest ONS estimates the 16-24 age group already have 85% antibodies with 75% of this being from prior infection.

If it is the case that 12-15 are just as susceptible to spread then it seems like vaccinating them a month after the start of term is pretty pointless as they will be at similar levels. If they are at lower prevalence then we are back to a discussion about them being lower risk of infection and spread (to them and others) in the first place.

they kind of said no, not at the moment but pointed to their limited brief. I assume that's an unusual type of statement from JCVI?

Yes, I think so too. I think last time on the 16 and 17 yo, although they eventually fell on the other side, their brief did seem to cover these other issues too (transmission to the rest of society, education etc). Though they still recognised that even then it was a very marginal decision. I don't know why they didn't cover the same issues this time - though possibly the data on transmission and so on just isn't available from the trials that took place. There could indeed be something about not wanting to be held liable for any issues arising in the medium to longer term I suppose?

I think the trials on children were smaller than the main adult trials - and even then, the very rare but dangerous side effects from eg AZ (blood clots) and myocarditis for the mRNA vaccines only really became apparent when the programme was rolled out to the population. Which is fair enough given the small numbers of these side effects and the limited numbers in the trials - but there must be some concern that some of those issues could potentially be worse for younger children (presumably as they don't have the resilience of an adult immune system etc yet) though with no data yet from the UK trials. Indeed, it seems, with data from other countries that myocarditis is indeed more common as you go down the age groups. So coupled with the low overall risk of covid itself to that age group (remembering the purpose of the vaccine programme is to reduce hospitalisations and deaths - not specifically to reduce transmission or case numbers or anything else), you can understand why they are reluctant. It's not like the current infant vaccines, or even the flu squirt, where there is a definite direct benefit to the child protecting against severe childhood illnesses, even if rare side effects from the vaccine still occur.

Also I don't want him to miss more school time through sickness. If the vaccine reduces transmission then kids won't be off with sickness as much.

Kids have been off school with no symptoms and no sickness. Kids are still having to wear masks yet no evidence that it stops spreading at school if they’re wearing one.
Kids always get bugs going around school, colds mostly, that’s school life, no vaccine will stop a dose of norovirus ripping through school and leading to high abscence rates, nor will it stop them catching covid, testing positive and having to be off a few days with mild cold symptoms they recover quickly from

Children don’t have a choice about the vaccine it now seems. The finger is still being pointed at the young. So sad.

It's not like the current infant vaccines, or even the flu squirt, where there is a definite direct benefit to the child protecting against severe childhood illnesses, even if rare side effects from the vaccine still occur.

Agree with this and this is the whole crux of the argument. Other vaccines protect babies and children against disease which is harmful/fatal in childhood. The data so far suggests COVID is not a serious illness in children.

And yes agree with @SempreSuiGeneris that vaccinating students doesn't seem to have made much impact on universities or colleges being able to operate normally

Children don’t have a choice about the vaccine it now seems. The finger is still being pointed at the young. So sad.

They very much do have a choice and fingers are being pointed in both directions.

It's not an easy choice and I'm glad I don't have to make it.

I think the JCVI could be viewed as a push back from them.

Going back to the AZ decision they initially restricted it to under 30s and hinted in the press conference that it was a very fine balance in early 30s. The next week they raised to age limit to 40.

In relation to 16/17 they have said one dose for now. The assumption seems to have been that they would then say yes to 12-15 single dose before approving 2nd dose for 16/17 and back to 12-15 and then younger still. Now looks more likely they would like to wait and see and stop at single dose for 16/17 altogether.
In any event, the longer they wait the less benefit there is on the upside. Pp I quoted 85% antibody positive for 16-24. According to The Telegraph, among others, the figure for 12-15 is upwards of 50%.