We registered our kids as soon as we were able, and got the notice yesterday afternoon that we could book their appointments. Quickest appointments were tomorrow afternoon, so that is when they are going.

Brother-in-law is a heart transplant recipient (20-plus years ago now). We would like to see him over the holidays, this will make us feel a bit safer doing so. That alone made the decision pretty easy for us. It also helps that the vax has been approved for a bit now, and I have not been hearing any issues with it.

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Starting from scratch...

Our elementary school had a vaccination clinic early on and everyone is close to getting their second shots now. As far as i can tell, the kids have less side effects than adults. I haven't heard of any kids in the area doing more than complain about a sore arm or being a little grumpy. Adults on the other hand range from nothing to out for a few days.

Our daughter just got her second yesterday and besides a sore arm has been fine. She is queen of the whiny pants also so if she’s not complaining it wasn’t that bad.

was just able to register my 9 and 6 year olds (Vancouver suburbs)
soonest we could get in is Dec.14

my 9 year old son overthinks everything and gets pretty anxious about stuff - wife and I decided the best thing was probably not to mention anything to him about it until the day-of ;)

Good news: There have been only 8 cases of myocarditis reported in young children after ~5 million 1st doses and ~2 million 2nd doses. Combined with reports that [URL="https://www.nicd.ac.za/...WEEK-48-2021_rev.pdf"]Omicron increases children's risk of hospitalization more than 20x[/url] compared with older variants I think the risk reward calculations now clearly favor vaccination of young children.

Am I reading their Scenario 3 correct that it's 5% of the cases and 10% on September 11th 2021 (which was already at the tail end of the end of summer spike). That seems like an extremely optimistic scenario at this point, especially with Omicron. Even with that, it seems like good news overall - here's to hoping the 2-5 age group gets approved soon.

Unfortunately it looks like 0-2 may be before 2-5. The dose size Pfizer used seems to be too small so they’re adding a third shot to test.

The initial South African data seems to have been pessimistic. Omicron has resulted in "only" a ~35% increase in children's hospitalizations nationwide (though New York is reporting 4-5x more children's hospitalizations).

Either way, risk/reward clearly now favors vaccination for children too.

I haven’t had a chance to read the journal article is that 20x increase adjusted for people getting vaccinated. As in the 20x was worst case if no one was vaccinated?

Also I’d wait and see the data at the mid/end of Jan. For kids. I don’t think it was cranked up quite yet beginning of December. So everyone was off school by the time it really turned on. Christmas plus New Years than the start of school will really be the test on how bad this is for kids.

Curious how the kiddos have fared since the vaccine rollout.

My 12 and 9 year old were both vaccinated with Pfizer. The older got a booster and has yet to contract the virus. My 9 year old is currently on home quarantine with a positive test result. He subsequently passed it to his vaccinated & boosted mother. Neither are seriously ill. At this point I almost wish my 12 year old got a mild case at the same time for quarantine convenience and getting on with life without worrying so much about it.

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The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W

9 has had both shots since January. No COVID.

4 still isn't eligible. No COVID for him yet either.

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How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

5yr old grandson got vaxxed soonest along with nearly all of his classmates. No side effects with shots and no covid positives yet, school house has remained open with no announced exposures, masks are worn without exception. his school has been as close to normal as one could expect. His 4 year old brother has not tested positive yet although he has been quarantined with a known day care exposure. Our grandparent/parent pod remains covid free. Knock on wood.

Pfizer vax for 5-11 year olds was ~68% effective against delta infection, but only ~12% effective against Omicron: https://www.cnbc.com/...-11-study-finds.html

Protection against hospitalization was 48%

Pretty expected. I’ll take approx 50 percent improvement in hospitalizations. Kinda surprised no booster has been recommended.

I don’t really care about cold sick, the hospitalization I don’t want to happen.

In the end it all depends on absolute vs relative risk. If your risk of being hospitalized is 1/100,000 a 35 percent increase in risk is nothing. If it is 1/5 it is quite meaningful.

I used to deal with this regularly when I met with drug reps (I am a family doc) detailing their drugs. Okay Mr. Pfizer your drug reducing my chance of dying from condition X is ten percent. Ten percent of what? My chance of dying is fifty percent I am listening, My chance of dying is one percent well you have now reduced my chance of dying by ten percent to 0.9 percent. That isn't very exciting.

I do love vaccines though. For the most part on a cost basis about the best drugs we have going.

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

I’m glad I got it for my kiddo. She got the magic ticket for summer camp and no testing trip to Hawaii at 1/3 of the dosage she would have needed if they waited two weeks longer to approve.

Florida will officially recommend against vaccinating healthy kids.

“TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo said Monday that the state will formally recommend against COVID-19 vaccinations for healthy children.

Ladapo made the announcement at a roundtable event organized by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis that featured a group of doctors who criticized coronavirus lockdowns and mandate policies.”

https://abcnews.go.com/...ealthy-kids-83299861

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The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W

We live in a world where DeSantis actually thought "Hmm, I want to run for president, what will help me is if I hurt children."

And the worst part, he is right. Activlly harming children's health will help him with Republican voters. Which should be a damning indictment on both DeSantis, Republican politicians, and Republican voters, but no we are supposed to ignore all evidence that they are fucking maniacs.

I don't agree with recommending *against* vaccination for those healthy aged 5-11, but with only 12% vaccine efficacy against Omicron infection (48% against hospitalization) & an extremely low risk of serious complications I can certainly understand withholding a recommendation to get that cohort vaccinated. Not a hill worth dying on...


Hospitalization rate for unvaccinated aged 5-11: ~1 in 200,000

Let's just say I wasn't surprised to see it coming out of Florida.

But I agree with your position. Not recommending is significantly different from recommending against it. See above.

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The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W

There was a time (including when I was a kid) when getting measles, mumps and/or chickenpox was just a fact of life. For most kids of that era it was no big deal but some had serious consequences. All of us that got measles, still carry that virus and for many it eventually leads to shingles, which is a much bigger deal.
Nowadays most kids get the MMR vaccine and that has knocked those diseases back tremendously - except when a small group of people decide their kids don't need vaccinating, and then we again learn that these diseases are super infectious and they just don't go away on their own.

So if you tell me that there's a vaccine I could give my kids, that can cut the risk of hospitalization *in half* and otherwise might prevent them from getting a disease that could cripple them later in life, I'll be pretty quick to line them up.

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Less is more.

*in half* of what - and at what potential cost?

You're looking to reduce the (current *weekly*) risk of hospitalization from 1 in 200,000 to 1 in 400,000. But if you're a boy, you're also adding back a (*one time*) ~1 in 500,000 risk of myocarditis/pericarditis. So vaccination is still a positive, but a very small one.

And that 1 in 200,000 rate of hospitalization was for all 5-11 year olds. A disproportionate number of the hospitalized have at least 1 comorbidity. So if you have a perfectly healthy 5-11 year old boy, the vaccination *might* not be a net benefit after all (during Omicron - it definitely was a benefit during Delta).

Right now I consider the cumulative probability of getting Covid to be pretty close to 1. At some point we are all likely to get it. When I do, I would rather be in a position of having been recently vaccinated so that the effects of the disease are minimized. Because some of the long term side effects look like they are not fun at all.
By extension I would also prefer to give my kids the maximal probability of not having long term side effects of a disease that we mostly don’t know.
And yeah, there are people, including kids, that had negative side effects from the vaccine(s). The probability of that occurring has been much lower than the probability of serious consequences from the disease and I expect it to continue to go down as the vaccine research continues.

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Less is more.

I respect that - and think you're probably right.

I believe you will find it is the chicken pox virus that stays with you and later can lead to shingles. Though there is something to prevent that in older people.