Oldsouljer said:
Civilized said:
packgrad said:
I can't wait for the AAPs breathless declarations that children NEED to be vaccinated.
AAP recommends vaccination for children and strongly advocates in-person learning.
In the middle of a global pandemic that seems like a reasonable balance to strike.
Non sequitur. This pandemic has statistically afflicted the elderly. AAP's recommendation contains no justifications for their recommendation, which is why their stance is devoid of reason. Without their justification stated, there is insufficient grounds for vaccination of children with what is still a de facto experimental treatment with no studies available to determine long term consequences.
The pandemics effects are extremely stratified by age.
Last time I checked, the elderly don't live on islands containing only elderly people, they live amongst the 7 million children that have been diagnosed with Covid in this country. The middle-aged and elderly can catch Covid from those 7 million children that have been diagnosed with Covid in the US.
And regarding direct effects, Covid has taken 700 children from us and hospitalized or badly sickened tens of thousands more. Missed school, missed play with other kids, missed holidays with family. Death and hospitalization aren't the only two outcomes for kids that have significant societal costs.
The doctors that make these recommendations obviously feel like the individual and societal benefits and risks of vaccination tip heavily towards vaccination being prudent and recommendable for children.
That's rather obvious and implicit in their recommendation; what are you looking for specifically?
For them to spell out that the worldwide vaccination data set now has billions of people in it with an almost infinitesimally small number of severe side effects?
That children don't seem to be any worse-affected by vaccines from a side effect perspective than adults and are conferred the same immunity benefits as adults?
That there's never been a vaccine campaign in the history of the world administered to as many people as Covid vaccines have been, and with this relatively mild side effect profile, but later was found to have serious long-term side effects in the absence of observable serious short term side affects?
In the absence of definitive longitudinal studies that follow vaccinated children for five, 10, 20 years down the road, there's not going to be ironclad definitive proof that there is zero risk of long-term side effects for kids. So the risk of the unknown has to be weighed against the very observable and calculable risks to individual children and communities and society of not vaccinating.
As with all medical decisions, just ask your doctor. What does your pediatrician say? Did you ask them if they've gotten their own children vaccinated (or would, if they had children at home) and what their reasons were?