Coronavirus - New Zealand
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@muddyriver I'm interested in why it's a definite no? I have no skin in the game and understand why a parent might be reluctant given that age group is at negligible risk from Covid.
But the counterargument is that kids are great at passing bugs on and they remain a potential virus reservoir.
We vaccinate young kids for other illnesses although admittedly this is to protect them rather than the wider population.
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@dogmeat said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
@muddyriver I'm interested in why it's a definite no? I have no skin in the game and understand why a parent might be reluctant given that age group is at negligible risk from Covid.
But the counterargument is that kids are great at passing bugs on and they remain a potential virus reservoir.
We vaccinate young kids for other illnesses although admittedly this is to protect them rather than the wider population.
I think you just made his argument.
I’m not saying I agree, but you’ve summed it up with your last sentence.
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I have friends with a child with cystic fibrosis. So, I am very keenly awaiting the vaccine to become available for 5 to 12 year olds.
But, as for vaccinating the healthy children in that age bracket (of which mine would be in that bracket) . I'd have to look at the maths. My first instinct at this stage is that it should be a voluntary option for the vulnerable, so probably a no if the benefits don't out-weigh the risks.
As a nation we are probably as well well vaccinated against hospitalisations etc as we are likely to get, and don't see much value trying to push this much broader now. There is no herd immunity to target.
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@dogmeat I reluctantly vaxxed my 12yr old lad recently. I won't be vaxxing the 11yr old girl for as long as possible. Sure it appears a small chance of issue, but my wife got an out of cycle period immediately after hers, and I don't like the idea of messing with my little girls body.
I also DO like the idea of them building up natural immunity to something that isn't that actually dangerous to them.
I won't be vaxxing my 8yr old son either
As for the societal argument, I'm a bit over people telling us what we need to do for everyone else (not aimed at you personally). If you're afraid of the virus, stay home, get vaxxed, whatever. It is not the responsibility of everyone else to take your margin of risk down yet another notch. We have locked down society repeatedly over the past 2yrs, to largely protect the vulnerable, at significant cost.
Time to move on.
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We've run with every other advised and available vaccination so far in the kids lives, and I've seen no valid reason from reputable sources* to change that approach now.
(* And to be blunt, I've reached the stage I'm only interested in weblinks or "look at this research" if it is from the GP, or from the youngest's Paediatrician...)
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@donsteppa said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
We've run with every other advised and available vaccination so far in the kids lives, and I've seen no valid reason from reputable sources* to change that approach now.
(* And to be blunt, I've reached the stage I'm only interested in weblinks or "look at this research" if it is from the GP, or from the youngest's Paediatrician...)
I'd say the 3 major differences are:
- this vaccine was developed in record time - we truly do not know what the medium term effects in kids might be
- the vaccine protects against a disease that really isn't that dangerous to kids - we have a lot of evidence for this
- we are already seeing mutations that may be resistant to current vaccines - so why bother taking the risk?
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@voodoo said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
@dogmeat I reluctantly vaxxed my 12yr old lad recently. I won't be vaxxing the 11yr old girl for as long as possible. Sure it appears a small chance of issue, but my wife got an out of cycle period immediately after hers, and I don't like the idea of messing with my little girls body.
I also DO like the idea of them building up natural immunity to something that isn't that actually dangerous to them.
Out of interest (I'm not trying to trap you) are you allowing your daughter to get the HPV vax?
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@gt12 said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
@dogmeat said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
@muddyriver I'm interested in why it's a definite no? I have no skin in the game and understand why a parent might be reluctant given that age group is at negligible risk from Covid.
But the counterargument is that kids are great at passing bugs on and they remain a potential virus reservoir.
We vaccinate young kids for other illnesses although admittedly this is to protect them rather than the wider population.
I think you just made his argument.
I’m not saying I agree, but you’ve summed it up with your last sentence.
I have a friend who lives in the UK (real guy, not a friend of a friend 😉) and his boys got very sick for a week or two. Loss of taste, swelling of the face and around the neck, and welts on extremities that looked like something out of the 1600s. The CF Jr's will have the jab to spare them that type of experience if they are unlucky enough to get it bad
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@crucial said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
@voodoo said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
@dogmeat I reluctantly vaxxed my 12yr old lad recently. I won't be vaxxing the 11yr old girl for as long as possible. Sure it appears a small chance of issue, but my wife got an out of cycle period immediately after hers, and I don't like the idea of messing with my little girls body.
I also DO like the idea of them building up natural immunity to something that isn't that actually dangerous to them.
Out of interest (I'm not trying to trap you) are you allowing your daughter to get the HPV vax?
haven't had that discussion yet, and I'm sure the wife will drive that decision - but using my framework above, it doesn't fall foul of any of my concerns (severity of the disease its protecting against, been around for 15yrs, not rendered useless by mutations)
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Genuinely interested in this - I have tried to research but man ogh man.
Has there ver been a vaccine with long termnegative side effects?
I don't mean something that is evidenced in the short term like say within the first six weeks that has long term health effects, but something that only becomes apparent way down the line.
Lots of people are giving the italicised bit as a reason for vaccine hesitancy, but I have not been able to find any evidence of it occurring - from a reputable source.
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@dogmeat said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
Genuinely interested in this - I have tried to research but man ogh man.
Has there ver been a vaccine with long termnegative side effects?
I don't mean something that is evidenced in the short term like say within the first six weeks that has long term health effects, but something that only becomes apparent way down the line.
Lots of people are giving the italicised bit as a reason for vaccine hesitancy, but I have not been able to find any evidence of it occurring - from a reputable source.
Considering the way that early vaccines were made, I'd expect newer ones to be very safe
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@dogmeat said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
Genuinely interested in this - I have tried to research but man ogh man.
Has there ver been a vaccine with long termnegative side effects?
I don't mean something that is evidenced in the short term like say within the first six weeks that has long term health effects, but something that only becomes apparent way down the line.
Lots of people are giving the italicised bit as a reason for vaccine hesitancy, but I have not been able to find any evidence of it occurring - from a reputable source.
Interesting point. And going by (for example) @voodoo 's criteria length of service trumps data pool size (way more Covid vaccines given worldwide than HPV vaccines so a much larger 'test').
I get that there are concerns that something might happen later on that we don't know about but isn't that the case with all medication? -
I'm fine with people vaccinating their kids, but given how mild Covid is among that age group I don't see a strong driver to do so.
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@no-quarter said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
I'm fine with people vaccinating their kids, but given how mild Covid is among that age group I don't see a strong driver to do so.
Virus distribution would be the main one wouldn't it?
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@crucial said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
@no-quarter said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
I'm fine with people vaccinating their kids, but given how mild Covid is among that age group I don't see a strong driver to do so.
Virus distribution would be the main one wouldn't it?
Is there any solid data that says being vaccinated greatly reduces transmission? I've seen studies that show it is pretty negligible overall.
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@muddyriver said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
@godder Id be interested to hear the ferns thoughts on vaccinating 5 year olds right now. For me its an absolute no right now, but im obviously of a different opinion to most of you regarding this.
Medsafe will only approve it for general use if the benefits outweigh the risks/negatives. Otherwise they could approve it only for children with some approved list of medical conditions, or not at all if the negatives (like major side effects) outweigh the risks presented by Covid.
My basic view is that it probably offers marginal benefits to most, but real benefits to some children who would otherwise potentially be seriously impacted/killed by Covid.
@voodoo said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
@donsteppa said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
We've run with every other advised and available vaccination so far in the kids lives, and I've seen no valid reason from reputable sources* to change that approach now.
(* And to be blunt, I've reached the stage I'm only interested in weblinks or "look at this research" if it is from the GP, or from the youngest's Paediatrician...)
I'd say the 3 major differences are:
- this vaccine was developed in record time - we truly do not know what the medium term effects in kids might be
- the vaccine protects against a disease that really isn't that dangerous to kids - we have a lot of evidence for this
- we are already seeing mutations that may be resistant to current vaccines - so why bother taking the risk?
I picked this post because it was representative of a few posts here rather than just to target it particularly.
For 1 - we can never know what medium term side effects of new vaccines are, not only for the obvious reason that they are new, but also because trials normally have bigger spaces between them because of funding and delays caused by slow bureaucracy, not because that would be best practice if there was infinite money. It's also something that generally has never been part of the trials or approvals process.
For 2 - public health and epidemiology can strongly suggest vaccination even when the individual risks from a disease are low.
For example, Rubella has serious complications (encephalitis) in 1/6000 (0.017%) cases of the general population, but has serious negative impacts on pregnant women and their babies at a much higher rate. There's not really any health reason to vaccinate boys against Rubella, but we do anyway because elimination by herd immunity is seen as a worthwhile goal.
Polio is another disease which is usually mild with limited to no symptoms, especially in children, but unpleasant in a smallish percentage of cases (about 5%) and 2% become paralysed, but that varies from minor to death. The polio vaccine can also cause polio in small numbers of cases. Despite that, it's still seen as a worthwhile goal to eliminate it by herd immunity.
For 3 - maybe, although so far Pfizer has been pretty effective against hospitalisation and deaths even with the mutations to date.
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@no-quarter said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
@crucial said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
@no-quarter said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
I'm fine with people vaccinating their kids, but given how mild Covid is among that age group I don't see a strong driver to do so.
Virus distribution would be the main one wouldn't it?
Is there any solid data that says being vaccinated greatly reduces transmission? I've seen studies that show it is pretty negligible overall.
Trials showed about 90% reduction in catching it at all. Studies depend on whether they are looking at household contacts or other - it's less effective in a household setting, but otherwise seems pretty good at preventing transmission in casual settings.