The COVID-19 pandemic

[plam]

Using CDC data since they have a bigger data set:

• 2% of infected kids (0-9) are hospitalized
  
• 1% of infected kids are sent to ICU (yes, typically with intubation)
  
• 0.035% of infected kids have died 
  

As for the vaccinations,

• 0.00011% of recipients (0-18 in this case, sorry) died after the injection
  

Thanks for looking up the numbers!

Another fact about vaccines is that it basically never happens that there are vaccine side effects more than 6 months after vaccine administration. Long COVID, on the other hand...

[ac3r]

Admittedly, I didn't really read the 5 pages of discussion regarding vaccinating children, but I can't understand why anyone would argue against vaccinating children if it's safe to do so. What's worse: potential side effects from a vaccine (which, based on our understanding, seem very minimal/rare), or potential side effects from a novel virus that has completely disrupted this world and killed millions of people - including many children? We have no understanding of what long Covid may do to children yet. In 15 years, those who were infected by the virus could end up developing life long debilitating side effects. A disease is much scarier than a vaccine made to fight the virus that causes it.

Our current understanding of these vaccines is that they should be safe for children. And, there are currently ongoing trial studies to determine whether or not it's safe for them. Using the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for example, they did a trial study on nearly 3000 children aged 12-17 and were able to conclude that it is both safe and effective. Now they are currently in the final phase of trials for children aged 5-11 with hopes that that will provide more information on how safe it is for children aged 6 months-4 years old. A lot of the other vaccines - Moderna, ZyCoV-D, Abdala etc - are also doing trials. Some have already been approved for emergency use in children; one example is Sinopharm which is approved for children as young as 3 and which has so far not seen any serious issues in that regard.

I'm not a parent so I guess I don't understand the natural wariness of a parent to give their child a very new vaccine (some of which have entirely new technologies we don't exactly know a lot about), but if I was one I would rather they get vaccinated than potentially suffer from Covid-19. All vaccines are put through trials and that's how we determine whether or not it's safe. All the vaccines we got as children had to go through the same and since we had some daring parents and children thankfully volunteer to participate in trial studies which is why we are now safely able to be vaccinated against things like mumps and rubella.

[jeffster]

Using CDC data since they have a bigger data set:

• 2% of infected kids (0-9) are hospitalized
  
• 1% of infected kids are sent to ICU (yes, typically with intubation)
  
• 0.035% of infected kids have died 
  

As for the vaccinations,

• 0.00011% of recipients (0-18 in this case, sorry) died after the injection
  

For this, I could not find a more detailed analysis of the root cause, how many of those actually were caused by the vaccination, sorry.

If only 1 kid in 10 caught COVID, the risk of death from the disease would be at least 35x that of risk of death from the vaccine. Also, a substantially high risk of the kids being sent to the ICU.

And, as others have said, vaccinating the kids (really, vaccinating any given person) helps protect everyone else as well. It's the greater good.

Tom, where are you getting your hospitalization numbers? I can’t find anywhere that 2% of infected children end up in hospital, let alone 1% end up in ICU. You have any links?

This is for Ontario: https://www.publichealthontario.ca/-/med....pdf?la=en

39 children in ICU, out of 70,187 cases works out to 0.055% — 36x less than what you wrote.
Death rate (2 out of 70,187 cases) works out to 0.0028% (11x less your figure).

It might be different elsewhere, but this is for Ontario, up to June 30, 2021.

Now, even if it were true that 0.035% of infected children were to die, are people aware of the typical death rate of children, prior to covid? The typical death rate, for 15-19, for example, is about 0.035%. Other age groups below that range from 0.01% to .45%.

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/...1310071001

As a whole, according to WHO, typical death rate for 5-14 year olds, per year, is 0.09% (3x higher than your covid death rate, for children, and 33x higher than what Public Health says:

https://www.who.int/data/gho/data/indica...-14-years)

Further reading to this: According to the CDC, in the USA, over 55,000 children, ages 0-17 have died. 412 were due to Covid. Guess what was more than 2x as bad? Pneumonia.

https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Provisional-CO.../9bhg-hcku

I am all for discussions and opinion. That is fine.

But one thing I don’t like, is, posting information without links or proof. I’m providing the links that back-up my opinions. I won’t start posting fake numbers to support any of my opinion though.

Thanks guys.

[tomh009]

Tom, where are you getting your hospitalization numbers? I can’t find anywhere that 2% of infected children end up in hospital, let alone 1% end up in ICU. You have any links?

As I said, I used CDC data as it's a much larger data set (and easily searchable). Use the visualization tools on the CDC web site, filter by age and filter out the missing/unknown values.
https://data.cdc.gov/Case-Surveillance/C...-akqf/data

From that data:

• 632,808 children (0-9) infected and NOT hospitalized
  
• 15,131 children (0-9) infected and hospitalized (about 2.33%)
  

[tomh009]

Now, even if it were true that 0.035% of infected children were to die, are people aware of the typical death rate of children, prior to covid? The typical death rate, for 15-19, for example, is about 0.035%. Other age groups below that range from 0.01% to .45%.

Don't forget to apply the same to the reported deaths after vaccination, too. What's good for the goose is good for the gander, too.

[tomh009]

MONDAY 2021-09-13

Waterloo Region reported 24 new cases for today (11.8% of the active cases) and zero additional for yesterday for 28; 177 new cases for the week (+5 from yesterday and +17 from last week), averaging 13.4% of active cases. 206 active cases, +31 in the last seven days.

Next testing report on Tuesday.

Seven-day vaccination average is at 1,133 doses/day (previous week was 1,459). 75.20% of total regional population vaccinated (+0.55% from 7 days ago), 69.75% fully vaccinated (+80% from 7 days ago).

Ontario reported 600 new cases today with a seven-day average of 715 (+3), compared to 741 a week ago. 627 recoveries and four (new) deaths translated to a decrease of 33 active cases and a new total of 6,216. -183 active cases and 38 deaths for the week. 19,125 tests with a positivity rate of 3.14%. The positivity rate is averaging 3.03% for the past seven days, compared to 3.04% for the preceding seven.

163 people in the ICU, +5 from yesterday and +0 over the past week.

Seven-day vaccination average is at 30,292 doses/day (previous week was 34,935). 74.76% of total provincial population vaccinated (+0.64% from 7 days ago), 69.15% fully vaccinated (+0.80% from 7 days ago).

Cases/100K by regional health unit:

• 47 cases in Windsor-Essex: 12.1 per 100K
  
• 8 cases in Chatham-Kent: 7.5 per 100K
  
• 10 cases in Brant: 7.4 per 100K
  
• 28 cases in Niagara: 6.3 per 100K
  
• 84 cases in Peel: 6.1 per 100K
  
• 67 cases in York: 6.0 per 100K
  
• 59 cases in Ottawa: 5.9 per 100K
  
• 16 cases in Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph: 5.9 per 100K
  
• 32 cases in Hamilton: 5.5 per 100K
  
• 28 cases in Halton: 5.1 per 100K
  
• 30 cases in Waterloo: 4.9 per 100K (based on provincial reporting)
  
• 7 cases in Leeds, Grenville & Lanark: 4.1 per 100K
  
• 4 cases in Huron Perth: 4.1 per 100K
  
• 114 cases in Toronto: 3.9 per 100K
  
• 20 cases in Durham: 3.1 per 100K
  
• 4 cases in Lambton: 3.1 per 100K
  
• 16 cases in Simcoe-Muskoka: 3.0 per 100K
  
• 2 cases in Northwestern: 2.3 per 100K
  
• 3 cases in Eastern Ontario: 1.5 per 100K
  
• 3 cases in Kingston Frontenac: 1.5 per 100K
  
• 2 cases in Thunder Bay: 1.3 per 100K
  
• 2 cases in Grey Bruce: 1.2 per 100K
  

[jeffster]

Current 7-day Covid-19 cases per 100k

• Chatham-Kent Public Health 112.9
• Windsor-Essex County Health Unit 101.0
• Brant County Health Unit 58.0
• City of Hamilton Public Health Services 52.0
• Niagara Region Public Health 46.6
• York Region Public Health 37.8
• Ottawa Public Health 34.6
• Peel Public Health 33.6
• Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health 33.3
• Toronto Public Health 32.8

• Region of Waterloo Public Health and Emergency Services 27.6

• Haliburton, Kawartha, Pine Ridge District Health Unit 16.4
• Hastings Prince Edward Public Health 13.7
• Leeds, Grenville & Lanark District Health Unit 12.7
• Algoma Public Health 12.2
• Thunder Bay District Health Unit 11.3
• Renfrew County and District Health Unit 11.0
• Grey Bruce Health Unit 8.2
• Northwestern Health Unit 8.0
• Porcupine Health Unit 3.6
• Timiskaming Health Unit 0.0

• TOTAL ONTARIO 33.7

[jeffster]

Now, even if it were true that 0.035% of infected children were to die, are people aware of the typical death rate of children, prior to covid? The typical death rate, for 15-19, for example, is about 0.035%. Other age groups below that range from 0.01% to .45%.

Don't forget to apply the same to the reported deaths after vaccination, too. What's good for the goose is good for the gander, too.

I can only apply what we have here in Ontario. As you know, we have had zero deaths related to vaccinations of children under 12 because none have been vaccinated (because they're still studying safety). I don't know of any deaths regarding the vaccinations of older children (12-17, 18, 19). But as you are aware, we have had side effects of the vaccine (which is why they were discontinued -- Moderna, J&J and AZ for that age group plus other age groups for AZ).

Anyway, my main concern hasn't been deaths due to vaccine for those under 12. What I keep saying is that Covid-19 for younglings isn't as bad as some peddling the vaccine for yonngster claim it is.

My concern is long term side effects of a vaccine that is using new technology. We have zero idea 5, 10, 20 years down the road. Give it to children (under 12) who have major health issues, sure. To healthy kids, no. Unless we come up with a more traditional vaccine. And really, no one can say 100% that 10 years down the road bad things won't start happening. They were wrong about J&J, Astra-Zeneca an Moderna, after all the studies. What makes you think they'd be right about this? These kids brains are growing. They haven't hit puberty. If shit can hit the ceiling after the fact for those other vaccines after approval, it can here too for young children.

Rather, we need to use resources to vaccinate and educate the holdouts, vaccinate those in developing and poor nations. I know some will bring up "Covax", but remember, we used to to vaccinate our people. We should have done better, and need to do better. And quickly before a worse variant comes out.

[jeffster]

Tom, where are you getting your hospitalization numbers? I can’t find anywhere that 2% of infected children end up in hospital, let alone 1% end up in ICU. You have any links?

As I said, I used CDC data as it's a much larger data set (and easily searchable). Use the visualization tools on the CDC web site, filter by age and filter out the missing/unknown values.
https://data.cdc.gov/Case-Surveillance/C...-akqf/data

From that data:

• 632,808 children (0-9) infected and NOT hospitalized
  
• 15,131 children (0-9) infected and hospitalized (about 2.33%)
  

I am going to admit that the info in the link is very hard to understand, but, based on that link alone, it had 1,509,000 patients (0-9) with Covid-19, but I don't know what "Missing", "No", "Unknown" and "Yes" mean. What I do know, is that in the US, 5.3M children have gotten Covid-19.

https://downloads.aap.org/AAP/PDF/AAP%20...0FINAL.pdf

(From this site:  https://www.aap.org/en/pages/2019-novel-...ta-report/ )

Further down it shows a 0.9% hospitalization rate for children with Covid-19 and with children making up 2.4% of all covid-19 hospitalizations.

And to be honest, I am not sure how important a dynamic of 'hospitalized' is. I only say this because, as a parent, you take your kid to the hospital for stuff, including the sniffles (even before covid).

I am still waiting for you to show me that 1% of infected children are put into the ICU. This is an important dynamic. Because ICU usually means incubated (about 70% IIRC), and a very high death rate. With about 5.3M children, in the USA, having contracted Covid-19, 1% would be 53,000 children, and even if just 50% were incubated, that is 26,500, it should show a more deaths than the 400 I linked to (for the USA).

I did also show you Ontario's values, since this is where we live.

[tomh009]

That database allows you to analyze individual patient outcomes. This is why I used it. (I ignored the cases where the outcome was missing or unknown.)

[ijmorlan]

My concern is long term side effects of a vaccine that is using new technology. We have zero idea 5, 10, 20 years down the road.

You could argue with as much meaning that we have zero idea how many planets there are orbiting the Sun. We definitely know more than zero about long term effects of the vaccines.

[plam]

My concern is long term side effects of a vaccine that is using new technology. We have zero idea 5, 10, 20 years down the road. Give it to children (under 12) who have major health issues, sure. To healthy kids, no. Unless we come up with a more traditional vaccine. And really, no one can say 100% that 10 years down the road bad things won't start happening. They were wrong about J&J, Astra-Zeneca an Moderna, after all the studies. What makes you think they'd be right about this? These kids brains are growing. They haven't hit puberty. If shit can hit the ceiling after the fact for those other vaccines after approval, it can here too for young children.

Rather, we need to use resources to vaccinate and educate the holdouts, vaccinate those in developing and poor nations. I know some will bring up "Covax", but remember, we used to to vaccinate our people. We should have done better, and need to do better. And quickly before a worse variant comes out.

It's reasonable to be somewhat suspicious of these vaccines which seem to have come pretty quickly. However, we have rolled out vaccines to people after far less testing. There doesn't seem to be any vaccine of any type that has side effects after 6 months. This link has a list of vaccine side effects and how we don't see any long term side effects, and also talks about our experience with mRNA and adenovirus treatments in general.

https://www.chop.edu/news/long-term-side...19-vaccine

I also think COVID and particularly delta in under-12s is going to be more of an issue going forward.

[danbrotherston]

As I said, I used CDC data as it's a much larger data set (and easily searchable). Use the visualization tools on the CDC web site, filter by age and filter out the missing/unknown values.
https://data.cdc.gov/Case-Surveillance/C...-akqf/data

From that data:

• 632,808 children (0-9) infected and NOT hospitalized
  
• 15,131 children (0-9) infected and hospitalized (about 2.33%)
  

I am going to admit that the info in the link is very hard to understand, but, based on that link alone, it had 1,509,000 patients (0-9) with Covid-19, but I don't know what "Missing", "No", "Unknown" and "Yes" mean. What I do know, is that in the US, 5.3M children have gotten Covid-19.

https://downloads.aap.org/AAP/PDF/AAP%20...0FINAL.pdf

(From this site:  https://www.aap.org/en/pages/2019-novel-...ta-report/ )

Further down it shows a 0.9% hospitalization rate for children with Covid-19 and with children making up 2.4% of all covid-19 hospitalizations.

And to be honest, I am not sure how important a dynamic of 'hospitalized' is. I only say this because, as a parent, you take your kid to the hospital for stuff, including the sniffles (even before covid).

I am still waiting for you to show me that 1% of infected children are put into the ICU. This is an important dynamic. Because ICU usually means incubated (about 70% IIRC), and a very high death rate. With about 5.3M children, in the USA, having contracted Covid-19, 1% would be 53,000 children, and even if just 50% were incubated, that is 26,500, it should show a more deaths than the 400 I linked to (for the USA).

I did also show you Ontario's values, since this is where we live.

The hospital is different from a doctors office. You might take your child to a doctor for the sniffles, if you don't have a doctor you might take your child to the ER.  Being admitted to the hospital is very different. It suggests a very severe illness, not the sniffles. And this is doubly true during COVID, nobody is being admitted to the hospital who doesn't need life supportive services.

[jeffster]

That database allows you to analyze individual patient outcomes. This is why I used it. (I ignored the cases where the outcome was missing or unknown.)

Right, but you can't compare that to hospitalization/death rates if you're missing the majority of cases because of unknown outcome (which most likely was asymptotic cases to begin with). One might even think disingenuous.

For example, one might conclude (right or wrong) that the hospitalization and death rates is a fraction of what is being reported, due to unreported Covid-19 cases. And there is evidence that this number might actually be very high:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/...model-says

And to keep this honest; unreported Covid-19 related hospital stays (1 out of 1.8 cases accurately reported) but also unreported Covid-19 cases (CDC estimated that only 1 of 4.2 Covid-19 cases reported).

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nco...urden.html

Again, this changes the dynamics of the virus. Not that it makes it less serious, or more serious. Obviously every adult (12+) should still be vaccinated regardless of undercounting.

[danbrotherston]

My concern is long term side effects of a vaccine that is using new technology. We have zero idea 5, 10, 20 years down the road. Give it to children (under 12) who have major health issues, sure. To healthy kids, no. Unless we come up with a more traditional vaccine. And really, no one can say 100% that 10 years down the road bad things won't start happening. They were wrong about J&J, Astra-Zeneca an Moderna, after all the studies. What makes you think they'd be right about this? These kids brains are growing. They haven't hit puberty. If shit can hit the ceiling after the fact for those other vaccines after approval, it can here too for young children.

Rather, we need to use resources to vaccinate and educate the holdouts, vaccinate those in developing and poor nations. I know some will bring up "Covax", but remember, we used to to vaccinate our people. We should have done better, and need to do better. And quickly before a worse variant comes out.

It's reasonable to be somewhat suspicious of these vaccines which seem to have come pretty quickly. However, we have rolled out vaccines to people after far less testing. There doesn't seem to be any vaccine of any type that has side effects after 6 months. This link has a list of vaccine side effects and how we don't see any long term side effects, and also talks about our experience with mRNA and adenovirus treatments in general.

https://www.chop.edu/news/long-term-side...19-vaccine

I also think COVID and particularly delta in under-12s is going to be more of an issue going forward.

We people have been injected with mRNA vaccines en mass for over a year now, Phase 3 trials began in fall 2020.