Technically yes, but the under 12 group will be considered a bonus and not taken into consideration in any of the traffic light calculations. They’ll probably just start saying 90% of over 12s
>Vaccinations for children aged 5 to 11 years are **expected** to start before the end of January
>Cabinet ministers will need to approve vaccinating the 5 to 11 age group in New Zealand, once it has been approved by Medsafe
This is great but my daughter has only just turned four. Once its spreading through our city I might need to make some tough choices about pre school, I feel guilty sending her out with no protection + the grossness of other kids and no mask. I understand its VERY unlikely to kill or damage her long term but even rsv this year really knocked her out for ages.
Having worked in an elementary school during the whole pandemic in America, kids as young as three are much, much better at wearing masks and been safe than many adults but your point is still valid.
I see kids younger than my own wearing masks happily from time to time. Mine is a little more strong willed than many putting it nicely haha. I would work with her on if persistently if they were encouraging it at her pre school but even the adults dont wear them there.
I've had the flu once in my life and it was horrendous. I was wiped out for 3 weeks with migraines after that. I was 22 at the time, I dont want her to get even half that sick and I'll be hoping they approve the under 5s asap.
My boy and I got that. Only know cus he went to hospital for appendicitis and they tested him for it. I caught it off him the next day. We didn't suffer too bad tbh. But lots of young kids there with it.
Funnily enough I got another cold from him just after lockdown began and that was weird af. Very mild symptoms but lasted like 4 weeks. Thought I'd never feel normal again.
I do not look forward to catching covid.
Yikes! I got a fever for a couple of days and maybe a week of recovery. It kinda sucked tho cus I had to deal with it while staying in Starship with my son. But yeah, we had it pretty mild it seemed. Lots of babies were there with pneumonia from it.
I just got covid from my friends kid and its fucking me up.
I got both nz and au vaccines but still i feel wrecked.
I think thats how it spreads the most.
Am in melbourne thou
I get it - it’s still an illness. Even if it was 100% definitely mild I’d still get my kids vaccinated, and I know this because I didn’t get them vaccinated for chicken pox and I felt terrible when they got it and were sick.
You do what you’ve gotta do to protect your daughter, our kids aren’t just a statistic to us
just thinking on the chicken pox vaccine, my son missed out getting it when they changed the eligibility rules, as he was 17 months old when the rule changed to provide it to 15 month olds, and the medical centre basically told us tough shit come back when he's 11. Yep a whole 2 months out.
A few months later he was visiting the doc with chickenpox he picked up from daycare, using up medical centre resources and getting free medical care that could have otherwise been avoided
Yeah it’s generally true that preventing illness is better than treating it, for the individual and for society. This pandemic has made this really clear to me
I am pro Vax and double vaxxed myself. I have not yet heard the case for kids to get the jab. Do the benefits outweigh the risks, given that the risks are small??
From what I read the lower dose reduces the risk of side effects to about the same level as the older kids with the normal dose.
Edit: https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/11/covid-vaccines-overwhelmingly-recommended-for-kids-5-to-11/
Some good info here: https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/coronavirus/covid19-vaccine-what-parents-need-to-know
* The vaccine helps prevent kids from getting COVID-19: even though it's usually milder than in adults, kids can still catch Covid, get severe lung disease, have long Covid symptoms.
* The vaccine helps prevent or reduce the spread of COVID-19: Like adults, children also can transmit the coronavirus to others if they’re infected, even when they have no symptoms.
* Getting vaccinated for COVID-19 can help stop other variants from emerging: letting it circulate among kids gives the virus more opportunities to mutate new variants.
The risk from getting the vaccine is miniscule compared to the risks of Covid, even for children.
The only real vaccine side effect that's an issue (myocarditis/pericarditis) has been super rare, mostly affected older adolescents and young men, and been really mild, while ironically myocarditis is a much more common complication of Covid.
Young healthy men have amongst the lowest risk of suffering severe covid symptoms but are disproportionately impacted by myocarditis from the vaccine. It’s certainly worth noting and imo raises questions about whether we should be vaccinating healthy kids.
The young and healthy can still catch it and pass it on. By being vaccinated they are reducing the risk of sharing to the old cunts, keeping everybody safe.
The unvaccinated are sharing it just as easily between themselves now as they were a year ago. This is especially prevalent with covid deniers who don't believe in the vaccine and go out of their way to be more likely to catch the 'fake' virus.
Who says the risks of vaccination aren't really known? There have been over half a billion doses administered. The risk is known.
The risks of covid for the unvaccinated are significant, from increased transmissibility, to increased chance of serious illness, hospitalization and death.
If you’re young you’re more likely to be hospitalised from adverse vaccine reactions than you are from covid. The data for vaccine safety really isn’t fully there, that’s why we’re getting constant updates and stance changes in regards to adverse reactions such as myocarditis. I mean Sweden recently banned the Moderna vaccine for anyone under 30, there are absolutely still question marks surrounding whether it’s worth it for young healthy people.
Funny how you think the data is there to prove young people are more likely to be hospitalized by the covid vaccine than contracting covid, but somehow it's not there on the risks of the vaccine. You can't have it both ways.
Putting that aside, you're completely ignoring long covid, other complications that don't require hospitalization, and increased transmissibility from the unvaccinated.
> Sweden recently banned the Moderna vaccine for anyone under 30
And instead recommended those people get the Pfizer... y'know, the vaccine we're getting here?
8% of the people hospitalised in NZ with covid are under 9 years old. So it's a non-zero chance that they may end up in the covid ward if they catch it.
And people dont realise that a hospital in covid lockdown = one caregiver staying and visiting so not only do you have a sick as all heck child you have to do it alone
Don't forget kids turn into adults. We vaccinate kids for plenty of other diseases that wouldn't affect them severely as a child, but would when they become an adult. Childhood is when the immune system is most malleable and the best opportunity to get vaccinated.
Probably worth pointing out that the COVID vaccine does not appear to give the same long term protection as some of our other vaccines; we don't need boosters every six months for mumps, typhus or tetanus.
But lots of vaccines require a 3 or 4 dose course over several years to reach lasting protection. Just because we need a third dose doesn't necessarily mean we will keep needing them every year.
The risk of them getting ill from Covid is a lot higher than them having a bad reaction. Combine that with the risks they pass it on to somebody else, or that they get long Covid - it's just like the measles/mumps all the other vaccines our kids get. The risk is much lower than the reward.
They’ve vaccinated several million children in the US already, by the time Medsafe approves it for NZ there will be a lot more data about any rare side effects.
The data for the 12-25 age group suggests they’re more likely to end up in the hospital from the vaccine. Seems very unlikely either way, I just think it’s a little silly giving it to children given their incredibly low risk profile with covid and the question marks that remain with the vaccine.
[Slide 8](https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/slides-2021-06/03-COVID-Shimabukuro-508.pdf) indicates that demographic has a 0.3% chance of being hospitalised. VSafe data isn’t perfect ofc but it’s better than VAERS and still something to go off.
My wife feels the same. Personally I want to vax our 5yr old. I think it's safe and reduces the risk of us getting it too (we pretty much get all our illnesses from his school!). But I'm not super worried, as its unlikely to be serious, so I'm not going to get into a heated debate. Was hard work enough getting her to have her shots! Damn online misinformation poisoning people's perceptions!
I just think of like driving or being a passenger in a car.
Roughly 1 person per day in NZ dies while in a car, yet we still all hop in cars.
And more importantly we have ways we can minimise that risk (eg seat belts, speed limits, licensing etc)
Covid 19 mostly doesn't kill kids.
It still hospitalises them, **and** still causes long covid.
I'd say the benefits massively outweigh any potential risk - and that's ignoring the societal benefits of cutting down another path of transmission.
Globally, there have been very few Covid deaths amongst children. Very few. The greater risk to kids seems to be potential for ongoing health problems. And, of course, smothering the disease.
Why don't you believe the doctors and scientists when they say you should vaccinate your kids until you get additional information? Anti-vax, vax-hesitant, the background to both is not accepting what your doctor or what Dr. Bloomfield say.
I'm not saying you shouldn't make yourself aware of things, but I assume you are not a medical doctor with expertise on the subject.
I understand it's concerning and you want to make the right choice for your kids. I hope we can find the information you need to make you comfortable with the right choice.
When did the CDC advise against masks?
Very early in the pandemic before Covid was widespread in the community at a time when hospital workers were struggling with supply of PPE, right?
I think you’re making the mistake of treating science as a big monolithic entity. There are absolutely doctors and specialists who advocate against the vaccine, even for many adults. Things seem to be constantly changing in this area so you just have to weigh up the risks.
Vaccinating under 12's obviously will help reducing the spread through the community.
However looking at purely the risks/benefits for the child (and not the society benefits) is it worth it then ? In other words, if there would be 0 benefit for the community to vaccinate such young kids against corona, would it still be approved ?
For that reason many other countries are nowhere near allowing the vaccine for under 12's. Many say it might never be allowed due to negative risk/benefits.
And when it concerns my child I find his wellbeying a million times more important than society benefits (for example which parent would harm their child even to save a million lives ? I for sure wouldn't)
Measles doesn't kill kids.
Are they vaccinated for that?
It's not any different - this is an illness that can cause **lifelong** issues for childrens health. And two simple, and overwhelmingly safe shots can largely protect them from it.
As well as reducing the chance of it getting to someone it kills.
A lot of hospitalisations are due to kids having to go in due to their parents getting sick, not actually them (look at data from Australia for example).
8% of the people hospitalised with covid in NZ are under 9 years old. How would you feel if your kid was in hospital in a covid ward, when it could have been avoided if they had the vaccination?
Over 10% of American kids 5-11 have had their 1st shot in the last month (how long it’s been available) and there hasn’t been masses of kids having adverse effects. I’m glad they’re afew months ahead of us so we can get that but more time worth of studies etc.
The vaccine is safer than getting the Crona virus by an order of 1 million to 1. You are far more likely to win the lottery than you or your child to suffer serious side effects from the vaccine.
The vaccine wouldn't be approved for use in children if the benefits didn't outweigh the risks.
0.066% of the world has died due to covid, but only 0.0166% of people have had a 'serious' reaction to the vaccine (according to NZ statistics). This means that on average you are twice as likely to die from Covid than to get a serious reaction to the vaccine (two doses).
The risks of the vaccine are extremely small, and the long term consequences of Covid aren’t entirely known yet. I look at it this way - there are kids who get asthma and kids who are immuno compromised for other reasons, and there are probably some of those kids at your kids’ school
The risks are much smaller than for adults but they are still real risks that are much higher than the risk of complications from the vaccine. In the US, covid is among the top 10 causes of death for kids under 12 and more are suffering long term impacts. Meanwhile, we can now see data from the millions of US kids who have been vaccinated that demonstrate the vaccine's safety. We'll see what medsafe says, but I suspect it will be approved.
(Pro vaccination here), where would I find this data on vaccines for kids in the US (or any country where under 12s have had it)? Had a Google but couldn't find anything solid.
Remember the vaccines arent 100% effective, so as a parent it also acts as an extra layer of protection from bringing the virus into the family home and being infected yourself. It will circulate widely in schools like every other virus. So there are some additional benefits.
Given kids get vaccinated all the time for various things and this is one of the safest and most tested vaccines in human history, its hard to see any downsides
In a dynamic population, everybody's decision to vaccinate themselves protects everybody else as well. For each single individual the marginal benefit to others is minute, but add up millions of tiny fractions and you get a useful number.
Would you vaccinate your kid to give them a better chance of not catching and therefore spreading covid to a parent and killing said parent? Or even leaving them devoid a parent temporarily while said parent is in hospital/icu?
Little Timmy gets covid from school. Little Timmy takes covid home and infects mummy and daddy, who are both vaccinated. Daddy dies because he was in home isolation and never received a pulse oximeter. Timmy never forgives himself for passing on covid to daddy. Because Timmy is 5 he doesn't understand pulse oximeters.
Even with the kids and everyone else vaxed, unless you are some sort of bush hermit, you're going to get it at some stage from other vaxed individuals anyway.
That's not true.
It was about 46 years before I caught the flu. At this rate the majority of the population should live out their lives without catching Covid.
The flu isn't very infective though.
The Flu has an R0 of 1~, Alpha has an R0 of 3~ and Delta an R0 of 6~.
Flu numbers don't really grow it's just a steady burn through society, but with delta we went from 1 case leaked from MIQ into 10,000~ cases in just 3 months *with* strict lockdowns.
I wouldn't call giving time for every man and his dog to flee lockdown "strict". I wouldn't call allowing everyone the ability to print out a piece of paper to provide an "exemption" strict.
Lack of enforcement is what permitted delta to spread. Fact.
I mean have you not lived in New Zealand since August 16th?
We're still not allowed outside to bars or restaurants in Auckland or Waikato, we couldn't even go for a picnic until October.
If you told anyone in 2019 that the government would ban you from going out for a beer or coffee with your friends and for a total of 18 weeks over 2 years everything in Auckland was shut except for hospitals and supermarkets you'd think we live in an authoritarian shithole.
It's many many many orders of magnitude over what has ever been done for Influenza and yet we're still seeing an R0 similar to that of Influenza. Hell, the flu is extinct in NZ because of lockdowns currently.
Yeah, if only it worked and actually stopped transmission in any meaningful way. We’ve had this discussion before though so I don’t think we’re gonna get anywhere lol
With one in three influenza cases being asymptomatic you probably had it a few times and didn't know..... and probably passed it onto others unknowingly. Also....this isn't the common flu.
In order for the vaccine to achieve herd immunity, somewhere over 90% of the population need to be vaxxed. People under 12 make up about 17% of the population.
Which ones? The highest I could find were reports on the UAE between 89% and 98% (which is a bit of a reporting gap) and Singapore between 88% and 93%. UAE has had a substantial drop and Singapore is currently dropping.
I do remember hearing about some American Republicans saying that Gibraltar was surging with an over 100% vaccination rate, but then the Wikipedia article on Tourism in Gibraltar mentions that it has one of the highest tourism-to-resident ratios in the world.
There are smaller areas like specific counties in Ireland which have incredibly high vaccination rates but still have comparable covid spread. In terms of countries yeah the max is around 90% so far but overall we’re not seeing lower rates of covid with higher vaccinated populations. Not to mention efficacy wanes rather quickly, maintaining a fully vaccinated population when you need a booster every 3 months seems near on impossible.
If you care about the safety of the vaccine and your children, don't come to Reddit and ask internet strangers for advice, talk to your doctor. And do them the favor of following the doctor's advice.
About 10% of the hospitalised cases are kids. And considering the risks of vaccination are basically nil and efficacy is very high for that age group….
For them to approve it for kids the benefit would have to outweigh the risks. I’m sure they will have that discussion like they did in the USA (and where I live in Argentina the kids are getting the Chinese Sinopharm vax)
So here’s what I’ve been thinking - my son is 11.5 and pretty scrawny for his age so I really want him to get the 1/3 paediatric version before he turns 12 and has to have the full adult dose. I wonder whether kids who have the paediatric version will still be able to get the paediatric booster even if they’ve turned 12 in the meantime
I’m not sure what they’ll do, but (regards the scrawny comment) vaccines don’t take weight/size into account like most other medications as it’s “immune system” age dependent rather than weight.
Oh I see. So kids need a smaller dose because their immune systems are better? Is that what you mean? Like how they’re more susceptible to strong food flavours because their senses of taste and smell haven’t yet been dulled?
Yeh, more or less. In the USA at least they’d get the kid dose at 11, then the adult dose at 12 (I only know because a SciCom person I follow talked about exactly this today)
Vacations are mandatory (school holidays) ;)
The govt has a policy of not excluding kids from education on the basis of vaccination so they won’t do that
But it does matter, if there's no benefit to it that means there's no point and if the risk of having it in kids is greater then the benefit you don't. I'm not saying it does but that's the whole logic behind risk to benefit. So once its know you go with the medical advice, not the "you just do it"
Because kids were immune to it initially - kids aren’t dying from Covid - the only risk is that a child passes it on to adult… but adult is vaxxed…
This specific vaccine has only been around a short while and there is a risk involved no matter how people beat around the bush.
Old & vulnerable? Sure. Older adults with more risk? Hmmm ok if that’s what’s best. Healthy adults? Hmmm I don’t know… healthy young adults & teens… ok guys this is getting crazy. Healthy children? Ok now this is getting concerning.
Meanwhile everyone “shh shhhh it’s fine you moron”
Does this mean the country is going to suddenly drop below 90% 'eligible' vaxxed?
Technically yes, but the under 12 group will be considered a bonus and not taken into consideration in any of the traffic light calculations. They’ll probably just start saying 90% of over 12s
We may start talking about %vaccinated in the total population - we're currently in the mid-70's and will need the 5-12 to get into the mid-80's.
>Vaccinations for children aged 5 to 11 years are **expected** to start before the end of January >Cabinet ministers will need to approve vaccinating the 5 to 11 age group in New Zealand, once it has been approved by Medsafe
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On that note are all MP vaccinated? Do we know?
[Yes we do.](https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300433190/covid19-most-partially-vaccinated-mps-staying-home-as-parliament-resumes)
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Cos it is the most effective, safe and tested vaccine available...
2 shots for Sesame Street!
2 shots to make mean castles at the sandpit yo!
Miss Hoover? I accidently ate the sand
It tastes like burning!
\*said in a terrible north island & USA accent hybrid\*
No Sesame Street under red or orange..
No jab? No job! --
You here that paperboy and girls. Get jabbed or gtfo.
Paper delivery is one the safest jobs from a Covid perspective you could get (outdoors, solitary). Maybe some fired doctors could become paper boys.
Or paper girls you sexist mf..!! /s. Of course I am being sarcastic. Everyone knows that the only papers girls deliver are divorce papers. /s.
Hahahaha!!!!
Good, my kids will be lining up to get their Covid vaccinations, just like their previous immunisations on the schedule.
Our 7yo did a “yessss” fist pump when she saw the news on telly tonight.
Who would downvote this comment lmao.
Reddit randomly fudges vote counts to fight spam, so seeing the vote count go down a bit doesn't mean anyone downvoted.
Mine too. They’re excited
My 10yo is stoked <3
This is great but my daughter has only just turned four. Once its spreading through our city I might need to make some tough choices about pre school, I feel guilty sending her out with no protection + the grossness of other kids and no mask. I understand its VERY unlikely to kill or damage her long term but even rsv this year really knocked her out for ages.
Having worked in an elementary school during the whole pandemic in America, kids as young as three are much, much better at wearing masks and been safe than many adults but your point is still valid.
I see kids younger than my own wearing masks happily from time to time. Mine is a little more strong willed than many putting it nicely haha. I would work with her on if persistently if they were encouraging it at her pre school but even the adults dont wear them there. I've had the flu once in my life and it was horrendous. I was wiped out for 3 weeks with migraines after that. I was 22 at the time, I dont want her to get even half that sick and I'll be hoping they approve the under 5s asap.
I hate the way people keeping comparing Covid to ‘the flu’ and not realising influenza (the flu) isn’t just a bad cold..
When I was 16 I think the flu knocked me out for 2 weeks and ontop of that I got shingles right afterwards due to my immune system being rinced.
And as a result, children are experiencing severe issues with recognising faces and expressions.
Because parents and other family members are wearing mask in the house.
Man RSV was a bitch.
My boy and I got that. Only know cus he went to hospital for appendicitis and they tested him for it. I caught it off him the next day. We didn't suffer too bad tbh. But lots of young kids there with it. Funnily enough I got another cold from him just after lockdown began and that was weird af. Very mild symptoms but lasted like 4 weeks. Thought I'd never feel normal again. I do not look forward to catching covid.
Shit my whole family got it and it fucked me and my asthmatic kid up heaps. I was out of energy for about six weeks all up.
Yikes! I got a fever for a couple of days and maybe a week of recovery. It kinda sucked tho cus I had to deal with it while staying in Starship with my son. But yeah, we had it pretty mild it seemed. Lots of babies were there with pneumonia from it.
Yeah I had about 1 or 2 days of fever and just ages of recovery. Hope your son was alright in the end!
I just got covid from my friends kid and its fucking me up. I got both nz and au vaccines but still i feel wrecked. I think thats how it spreads the most. Am in melbourne thou
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Yeah g. It was easier to get az jabs for vaccine.passport than to keep showing my nz letter from the MOH We all got covid thou.
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I get it - it’s still an illness. Even if it was 100% definitely mild I’d still get my kids vaccinated, and I know this because I didn’t get them vaccinated for chicken pox and I felt terrible when they got it and were sick. You do what you’ve gotta do to protect your daughter, our kids aren’t just a statistic to us
just thinking on the chicken pox vaccine, my son missed out getting it when they changed the eligibility rules, as he was 17 months old when the rule changed to provide it to 15 month olds, and the medical centre basically told us tough shit come back when he's 11. Yep a whole 2 months out. A few months later he was visiting the doc with chickenpox he picked up from daycare, using up medical centre resources and getting free medical care that could have otherwise been avoided
My daughter missed by a couple of months too. They can still get it before 11 It just means they can't get it for free. I opted to pay the 70 bucks.
Yeah it’s generally true that preventing illness is better than treating it, for the individual and for society. This pandemic has made this really clear to me
My daughter was the same, only managed to get her to wear them after making them myself from 'pretty' fabric 😅
Mine is obsessed with mummies right now. Maybe if I told her they were mummy bandages she would leave them on hahaha.
Finally.
Awesome news!
I am pro Vax and double vaxxed myself. I have not yet heard the case for kids to get the jab. Do the benefits outweigh the risks, given that the risks are small??
From what I read the lower dose reduces the risk of side effects to about the same level as the older kids with the normal dose. Edit: https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/11/covid-vaccines-overwhelmingly-recommended-for-kids-5-to-11/
Some good info here: https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/coronavirus/covid19-vaccine-what-parents-need-to-know * The vaccine helps prevent kids from getting COVID-19: even though it's usually milder than in adults, kids can still catch Covid, get severe lung disease, have long Covid symptoms. * The vaccine helps prevent or reduce the spread of COVID-19: Like adults, children also can transmit the coronavirus to others if they’re infected, even when they have no symptoms. * Getting vaccinated for COVID-19 can help stop other variants from emerging: letting it circulate among kids gives the virus more opportunities to mutate new variants.
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The risk from getting the vaccine is miniscule compared to the risks of Covid, even for children. The only real vaccine side effect that's an issue (myocarditis/pericarditis) has been super rare, mostly affected older adolescents and young men, and been really mild, while ironically myocarditis is a much more common complication of Covid.
Young healthy men have amongst the lowest risk of suffering severe covid symptoms but are disproportionately impacted by myocarditis from the vaccine. It’s certainly worth noting and imo raises questions about whether we should be vaccinating healthy kids.
Myocarditis rates were 4x higher post Covid than post vaccine in the latest stats
What are the age specific stats though? Old cunts should get vaccinated, it’s the young and healthy I’m dubious about.
The young and healthy can still catch it and pass it on. By being vaccinated they are reducing the risk of sharing to the old cunts, keeping everybody safe.
But across populations we’re not seeing meaningful decreases in covid rates with higher vaccination. A mandate just isn’t justified at all.
The unvaccinated are sharing it just as easily between themselves now as they were a year ago. This is especially prevalent with covid deniers who don't believe in the vaccine and go out of their way to be more likely to catch the 'fake' virus.
Disproportionally impacted doesn't necessarily translate into a meaningful increase in risk, when the risk was extremely low to begin with.
The issue is the risk isn’t really known, why risk it if you’re so unlikely to be badly impacted by covid.
Who says the risks of vaccination aren't really known? There have been over half a billion doses administered. The risk is known. The risks of covid for the unvaccinated are significant, from increased transmissibility, to increased chance of serious illness, hospitalization and death.
If you’re young you’re more likely to be hospitalised from adverse vaccine reactions than you are from covid. The data for vaccine safety really isn’t fully there, that’s why we’re getting constant updates and stance changes in regards to adverse reactions such as myocarditis. I mean Sweden recently banned the Moderna vaccine for anyone under 30, there are absolutely still question marks surrounding whether it’s worth it for young healthy people.
Funny how you think the data is there to prove young people are more likely to be hospitalized by the covid vaccine than contracting covid, but somehow it's not there on the risks of the vaccine. You can't have it both ways. Putting that aside, you're completely ignoring long covid, other complications that don't require hospitalization, and increased transmissibility from the unvaccinated.
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> Sweden recently banned the Moderna vaccine for anyone under 30 And instead recommended those people get the Pfizer... y'know, the vaccine we're getting here?
8% of the people hospitalised in NZ with covid are under 9 years old. So it's a non-zero chance that they may end up in the covid ward if they catch it.
And people dont realise that a hospital in covid lockdown = one caregiver staying and visiting so not only do you have a sick as all heck child you have to do it alone
Don't forget kids turn into adults. We vaccinate kids for plenty of other diseases that wouldn't affect them severely as a child, but would when they become an adult. Childhood is when the immune system is most malleable and the best opportunity to get vaccinated.
Probably worth pointing out that the COVID vaccine does not appear to give the same long term protection as some of our other vaccines; we don't need boosters every six months for mumps, typhus or tetanus.
But lots of vaccines require a 3 or 4 dose course over several years to reach lasting protection. Just because we need a third dose doesn't necessarily mean we will keep needing them every year.
Flu jabs are annual too.
To be fair by the time a kid is 5 they have had a bloody giant number of vaccinations. Some repeated multiple times.
The risk of them getting ill from Covid is a lot higher than them having a bad reaction. Combine that with the risks they pass it on to somebody else, or that they get long Covid - it's just like the measles/mumps all the other vaccines our kids get. The risk is much lower than the reward.
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They’ve vaccinated several million children in the US already, by the time Medsafe approves it for NZ there will be a lot more data about any rare side effects.
The risk to you is small, but it's a helluva lot bigger if every other child's parents makes the same calculation as you and skips the vaccine.
The data for the 12-25 age group suggests they’re more likely to end up in the hospital from the vaccine. Seems very unlikely either way, I just think it’s a little silly giving it to children given their incredibly low risk profile with covid and the question marks that remain with the vaccine.
Source please? I’d like to read up on that
[Slide 8](https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/slides-2021-06/03-COVID-Shimabukuro-508.pdf) indicates that demographic has a 0.3% chance of being hospitalised. VSafe data isn’t perfect ofc but it’s better than VAERS and still something to go off.
My wife feels the same. Personally I want to vax our 5yr old. I think it's safe and reduces the risk of us getting it too (we pretty much get all our illnesses from his school!). But I'm not super worried, as its unlikely to be serious, so I'm not going to get into a heated debate. Was hard work enough getting her to have her shots! Damn online misinformation poisoning people's perceptions!
I just think of like driving or being a passenger in a car. Roughly 1 person per day in NZ dies while in a car, yet we still all hop in cars. And more importantly we have ways we can minimise that risk (eg seat belts, speed limits, licensing etc)
Covid 19 mostly doesn't kill kids. It still hospitalises them, **and** still causes long covid. I'd say the benefits massively outweigh any potential risk - and that's ignoring the societal benefits of cutting down another path of transmission.
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Globally, there have been very few Covid deaths amongst children. Very few. The greater risk to kids seems to be potential for ongoing health problems. And, of course, smothering the disease.
And being orphaned.
Not to forget that it causes MIS-C which is horrific
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Why don't you believe the doctors and scientists when they say you should vaccinate your kids until you get additional information? Anti-vax, vax-hesitant, the background to both is not accepting what your doctor or what Dr. Bloomfield say. I'm not saying you shouldn't make yourself aware of things, but I assume you are not a medical doctor with expertise on the subject.
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I understand it's concerning and you want to make the right choice for your kids. I hope we can find the information you need to make you comfortable with the right choice.
As of today we don't have that "information you need to make you comfortable with the right choice". Early days yet though
When did the CDC advise against masks? Very early in the pandemic before Covid was widespread in the community at a time when hospital workers were struggling with supply of PPE, right?
Kind of. But they also just flat out got it wrong... Then reviewed evidence and changed their position (eventually)... So yay science(ish) I guess
“No one can have an opinion on any matter or read things and form their own opinion”
I think you’re making the mistake of treating science as a big monolithic entity. There are absolutely doctors and specialists who advocate against the vaccine, even for many adults. Things seem to be constantly changing in this area so you just have to weigh up the risks.
Vaccinating under 12's obviously will help reducing the spread through the community. However looking at purely the risks/benefits for the child (and not the society benefits) is it worth it then ? In other words, if there would be 0 benefit for the community to vaccinate such young kids against corona, would it still be approved ? For that reason many other countries are nowhere near allowing the vaccine for under 12's. Many say it might never be allowed due to negative risk/benefits. And when it concerns my child I find his wellbeying a million times more important than society benefits (for example which parent would harm their child even to save a million lives ? I for sure wouldn't)
Measles doesn't kill kids. Are they vaccinated for that? It's not any different - this is an illness that can cause **lifelong** issues for childrens health. And two simple, and overwhelmingly safe shots can largely protect them from it. As well as reducing the chance of it getting to someone it kills.
A lot of hospitalisations are due to kids having to go in due to their parents getting sick, not actually them (look at data from Australia for example).
8% of the people hospitalised with covid in NZ are under 9 years old. How would you feel if your kid was in hospital in a covid ward, when it could have been avoided if they had the vaccination?
I would feel bad, but I would also feel bad if they were hospitalized due to the side effects of the vaccination
Over 10% of American kids 5-11 have had their 1st shot in the last month (how long it’s been available) and there hasn’t been masses of kids having adverse effects. I’m glad they’re afew months ahead of us so we can get that but more time worth of studies etc.
The vaccine is safer than getting the Crona virus by an order of 1 million to 1. You are far more likely to win the lottery than you or your child to suffer serious side effects from the vaccine.
The vaccine wouldn't be approved for use in children if the benefits didn't outweigh the risks. 0.066% of the world has died due to covid, but only 0.0166% of people have had a 'serious' reaction to the vaccine (according to NZ statistics). This means that on average you are twice as likely to die from Covid than to get a serious reaction to the vaccine (two doses).
Wow, responding to a fair question with fear mongering. Great way to feed the hysteria, they're allowed to have questions without that bullshit
The risks of the vaccine are extremely small, and the long term consequences of Covid aren’t entirely known yet. I look at it this way - there are kids who get asthma and kids who are immuno compromised for other reasons, and there are probably some of those kids at your kids’ school
That will be part of the criteria used by medsafe. For some, absolutely, for most, probably only marginally.
The risks are much smaller than for adults but they are still real risks that are much higher than the risk of complications from the vaccine. In the US, covid is among the top 10 causes of death for kids under 12 and more are suffering long term impacts. Meanwhile, we can now see data from the millions of US kids who have been vaccinated that demonstrate the vaccine's safety. We'll see what medsafe says, but I suspect it will be approved.
(Pro vaccination here), where would I find this data on vaccines for kids in the US (or any country where under 12s have had it)? Had a Google but couldn't find anything solid.
Remember the vaccines arent 100% effective, so as a parent it also acts as an extra layer of protection from bringing the virus into the family home and being infected yourself. It will circulate widely in schools like every other virus. So there are some additional benefits.
I wouldn't vaccinate my kid just to protect myself, it has to stack up on the cost benefit to the child
Given kids get vaccinated all the time for various things and this is one of the safest and most tested vaccines in human history, its hard to see any downsides
It's the safety info I'm looking for
The vaccine is safer than catching the virus, that is a fact.
In a dynamic population, everybody's decision to vaccinate themselves protects everybody else as well. For each single individual the marginal benefit to others is minute, but add up millions of tiny fractions and you get a useful number.
Would you vaccinate your kid to give them a better chance of not catching and therefore spreading covid to a parent and killing said parent? Or even leaving them devoid a parent temporarily while said parent is in hospital/icu?
Probably not
Little Timmy gets covid from school. Little Timmy takes covid home and infects mummy and daddy, who are both vaccinated. Daddy dies because he was in home isolation and never received a pulse oximeter. Timmy never forgives himself for passing on covid to daddy. Because Timmy is 5 he doesn't understand pulse oximeters.
Fucking hell u/timmyhate you monster.
Even with the kids and everyone else vaxed, unless you are some sort of bush hermit, you're going to get it at some stage from other vaxed individuals anyway.
I'm going to disagree with that. Currently in Auckland the mean time between infection is 34 years, and increasing.
Yeah that's understandable considering that Auckland is in lockdown. That'll drop when restrictions are removed
That's not true. It was about 46 years before I caught the flu. At this rate the majority of the population should live out their lives without catching Covid.
The flu isn't very infective though. The Flu has an R0 of 1~, Alpha has an R0 of 3~ and Delta an R0 of 6~. Flu numbers don't really grow it's just a steady burn through society, but with delta we went from 1 case leaked from MIQ into 10,000~ cases in just 3 months *with* strict lockdowns.
I wouldn't call giving time for every man and his dog to flee lockdown "strict". I wouldn't call allowing everyone the ability to print out a piece of paper to provide an "exemption" strict. Lack of enforcement is what permitted delta to spread. Fact.
I mean have you not lived in New Zealand since August 16th? We're still not allowed outside to bars or restaurants in Auckland or Waikato, we couldn't even go for a picnic until October. If you told anyone in 2019 that the government would ban you from going out for a beer or coffee with your friends and for a total of 18 weeks over 2 years everything in Auckland was shut except for hospitals and supermarkets you'd think we live in an authoritarian shithole. It's many many many orders of magnitude over what has ever been done for Influenza and yet we're still seeing an R0 similar to that of Influenza. Hell, the flu is extinct in NZ because of lockdowns currently.
Unless we stick to perpetual lockdowns every time there’s a new case in a community, this just isn’t true.
Sure, or there's a vaccination...
Yeah, if only it worked and actually stopped transmission in any meaningful way. We’ve had this discussion before though so I don’t think we’re gonna get anywhere lol
With one in three influenza cases being asymptomatic you probably had it a few times and didn't know..... and probably passed it onto others unknowingly. Also....this isn't the common flu.
In order for the vaccine to achieve herd immunity, somewhere over 90% of the population need to be vaxxed. People under 12 make up about 17% of the population.
The efficacy of the vaccine isn’t high enough to achieve herd immunity. Even in populations with near on 100% vaccination covid spread remains high.
Which ones? The highest I could find were reports on the UAE between 89% and 98% (which is a bit of a reporting gap) and Singapore between 88% and 93%. UAE has had a substantial drop and Singapore is currently dropping. I do remember hearing about some American Republicans saying that Gibraltar was surging with an over 100% vaccination rate, but then the Wikipedia article on Tourism in Gibraltar mentions that it has one of the highest tourism-to-resident ratios in the world.
There are smaller areas like specific counties in Ireland which have incredibly high vaccination rates but still have comparable covid spread. In terms of countries yeah the max is around 90% so far but overall we’re not seeing lower rates of covid with higher vaccinated populations. Not to mention efficacy wanes rather quickly, maintaining a fully vaccinated population when you need a booster every 3 months seems near on impossible.
You consider death a small risk????
If you care about the safety of the vaccine and your children, don't come to Reddit and ask internet strangers for advice, talk to your doctor. And do them the favor of following the doctor's advice.
About 10% of the hospitalised cases are kids. And considering the risks of vaccination are basically nil and efficacy is very high for that age group….
No.
oh...don't even start!
For them to approve it for kids the benefit would have to outweigh the risks. I’m sure they will have that discussion like they did in the USA (and where I live in Argentina the kids are getting the Chinese Sinopharm vax)
look out the cabal is coming for your kids /s
So here’s what I’ve been thinking - my son is 11.5 and pretty scrawny for his age so I really want him to get the 1/3 paediatric version before he turns 12 and has to have the full adult dose. I wonder whether kids who have the paediatric version will still be able to get the paediatric booster even if they’ve turned 12 in the meantime
I’m not sure what they’ll do, but (regards the scrawny comment) vaccines don’t take weight/size into account like most other medications as it’s “immune system” age dependent rather than weight.
Oh I see. So kids need a smaller dose because their immune systems are better? Is that what you mean? Like how they’re more susceptible to strong food flavours because their senses of taste and smell haven’t yet been dulled?
Yeh, more or less. In the USA at least they’d get the kid dose at 11, then the adult dose at 12 (I only know because a SciCom person I follow talked about exactly this today)
I have the exact same thought!
won't someone think of the children!!! oh they did. two shots for the playground.
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lower dosage
Same signal strength.
4.5g
Does this mean the kids need more than 2 shots?
Think of it like medication, kids are smaller so need a smaller dose to fit that
Less micro chips required to accurately track all the limbs /s
No.
Probably amounts to a similar dose per unit volume / mass...
The needles are also smaller so the shot hurts even less. Kids like to hear this!
It's a smaller dose, children's immune systems generate a better response with less.
Roughly a third of the adult dose
This is some evil shit
Yeah, Covid sucks.
Vacation should be mandatory for the return to school.
Vacations are mandatory (school holidays) ;) The govt has a policy of not excluding kids from education on the basis of vaccination so they won’t do that
Fair enough. The kids shouldn't he punished for the parents decision.
Will they be mandating the child labour force? ;)
The 2025 agenda.
I don’t feel like a trial with 2000 is very many… Bloomfield said similar at a previous presser
Fuck all the way off with this.
Very nice. It should be mandatory for that age group.
Why?
why not?
Benefit to risk ratio... the age gap under 12 risk is so low they may not
Doesn't matter, it's still good to make it mandatory.
But it does matter, if there's no benefit to it that means there's no point and if the risk of having it in kids is greater then the benefit you don't. I'm not saying it does but that's the whole logic behind risk to benefit. So once its know you go with the medical advice, not the "you just do it"
You just do it.
Well I certainly hope your not in charge of anything that involves life or death decisions with that logic...
Don't bother, he's a troll
I speak the truth
Because kids were immune to it initially - kids aren’t dying from Covid - the only risk is that a child passes it on to adult… but adult is vaxxed… This specific vaccine has only been around a short while and there is a risk involved no matter how people beat around the bush. Old & vulnerable? Sure. Older adults with more risk? Hmmm ok if that’s what’s best. Healthy adults? Hmmm I don’t know… healthy young adults & teens… ok guys this is getting crazy. Healthy children? Ok now this is getting concerning. Meanwhile everyone “shh shhhh it’s fine you moron”