Mostly Apolitical Thread for Discussing/Venting our Rational/Irrational COVID-19 Fears and Experiences in 2020

it's two based on everything i've ever read

Yeah, supposedly two weeks for immunity to kick in, which starting in late February more or less takes us to about ... now. Give or take.

mb, you're all right - 2 weeks

tf with that tweet

"naturally protected", yeeeeeeaaa that's not based in science at all. there have been plenty of kids who have gotten hospitalized for COVID, some have even died. sure, it's unlikely the latter will happen, but over 2 million children have had it, that's not "natural protection".

This was useful perspective:

https://services.aap.org/en/pages/2019-novel-coronavirus-covid-19-infections/children-and-covid-19-state-level-data-report/

Imo, I think Oster has been relatively level-headed about this kind of acceptable risk management from the start of this. There may be no clinical basis to "naturally protected," but as she observes, "Being a child aged 5 to 17 is 99.9 percent protective against the risk of death and 98 percent .. against hospitalization." Which is on par with or better than the protections accorded by any vaccine. The question no one knows the answer to yet is why.

What about asymptomatic infection and transmission, though? There's evidence coming in that at least some of the vaccines protect against asymptomatic infections as well as symptomatic ones; do we have similar evidence about kids?

just to be clear 98% “protection” against hospitalisation means 1 in 50 kids will be hospitalised after becoming symptomatic? have i got that right? ya feelin lucky??

isn't the real concern less that kids will die from the Vid and more that "only 12% of the country is fully vaccinated, and they could get other adults sick if you take them on a trip"?

idk that I would like, blanket condemn a trip depending on what precautions were taken and how the travel was done, but.....y'know. I feel like saying "natural protection" suggests a settled science that I don't really think IS actually settled.

to wit: https://adc.bmj.com/content/early/2020/11/30/archdischild-2020-320338

Whether children are also less often infected by SARS-CoV-2 is an ongoing debate. Large epidemiological studies suggest that children comprise only 1 to 2% of all SARS-CoV-2 cases.6–8 However, these numbers heavily depend on testing criteria and, in many reports, testing was done only in individuals who were symptomatic or required hospitalisation, which is less often the case for children. Some studies suggest that children are just as likely as adults to become infected with SARS-CoV-2.9 However, more recent studies report that children are less likely to get infected after contact with a SARS-CoV-2-positive individual.10–14 It has been suggested that children and adolescents have similar viral loads15 16 and may therefore be as likely to transmit SARS-CoV-2 as adults.17 18 In addition, the viral load may be similar in asymptomatic and symptomatic individuals.19–21 However, reassuringly, transmission in schools from children either to other children or to adults has been rare.22–24

I don’t weigh in much on the school reopening issue, because others are better suited to do it than I am. But this is pretty much where I stand too. https://t.co/G1KtSthPnD

— Ed MD (@notdred) March 19, 2021

ya feelin lucky??

Yes? No? I don't know? As I just read re: covid that "the rates of hospitalization, ICU admission and need for mechanical ventilation were not statistically worse than for young people with the flu." That is, around the same number of kids go to the hospital for covid as for the flu in a typical year, and the annual mortality rate (in a typical year) is iirc pretty similar as well. Now, adults, older teens and up? The covid stats are *much* worse and get worse the older you get. But younger kids don't appear to be in any more danger from covid than they are from a typical flu year. No idea why this is, and for sure "natural immunity" is not the answer, even if the trends are akin. I mean, I have kids, and I don't want them to get sick, so if any of you have seen different numbers, please let me know.

As for asymptotic transmission from kids to adults, that definitely seems much more unsettled. I wouldn't do any real travel with kids right now, I didn't even make it that for in that article/thread/debate. I was just talking about kids and covid generally.

I am realizing, though, that I have a lot of residual anger from the very early days - February and March - when it felt like I was constantly trying desperately to tell people that this was A Thing and was getting nowhere.

I remember your posts a year ago convincing me (gradually!) that this was going to affect everyone's lives and that we would all have to take it seriously

yeah that oster piece is deranged. and i like her work!

Strongly disagree with this article. Kids are definitely not "like your vaccinated grandparent." Here's why: a ragey thread. https://t.co/BBgof7jJxA

— Dr. Tara C. Smith (@aetiology) March 19, 2021

Plenty of people have talked about how problematic this article can be, but I would also like to point out two examples in the article where data and information was distorted in a completely disingenuous way to support the author's conclusionhttps://t.co/4JafjCV9WO

— Quang Nguyen (@quangpmnguyen) March 19, 2021

second of those tweets starts a thread that might answer your question about the probabilities oster cites tracer

suggest ban anyone using "ragey"

xpost Yeah, I usually like Oster, too. Still, thanks for linking, all interesting stuff. I'll be first in line to get my kids vaccinated when I can; them being unlikely to get seriously ill is no substitute for inoculation backed up by clinical studies (even if them unlikely to get seriously ill does provide some comfort). I don't know what the target for acceptable risk of transmission or infection is, though. Zero?

Oster almost certainly didn't write that headline, which I think is the thing about the piece that's really sticking in peoples' craw

I read anecdotally about a person who tested for COVID a day before his second vaccine, got the vaccine the next day, and the results of the COVID test: positive. What are the chances of this?

Probably about as good as catching covid, right?

sincere apologies for my tantrum the other night. it’s no excuse but I’ve been having a rough go on multiple fronts irl (as we all are, like I said, no excuse). There’s just so much stuff that fills me with atomic rage these days and I’m being knocked around from all directions irl but it’s absolutely no excuse for being a fucking shithead to people online and I’m extremely sorry especially to Dan S and table, both who (whom?) I honestly have nothing against.

Probably about as good as catching covid, right?

― Josh in Chicago,

Well, I also read you should put off getting the second vaccine if you test positive.

Oster almost certainly didn't write that headline, which I think is the thing about the piece that's really sticking in peoples' craw

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Friday, March 19, 2021 2:08 PM (thirteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yup, she said in her newsletter this morning "Read the whole article before you yell at me, please!"

There's an overwhelming amount of evidence that children are at low risk of hospitalization and death from COVID. Oster's analogy to a vaccinated adult was kind of clumsy and unhelpful, but her percentages are likely accurate. It's bizarre for that person to act like it's hard to find data to back this claim up just because he couldn't find the underlying data the CDC page used to calculate relative risk. For example:

https://gis.cdc.gov/grasp/covidnet/COVID19_3.html -- data from ten states, weekly hospitalizations per 100k by age. Data consists of "laboratory-confirmed COVID-19-associated hospitalizations in children (less than 18 years of age) and adults" from "nearly 100 counties in the 10 Emerging Infections Program (EIP) states (CA, CO, CT, GA, MD, MN, NM, NY, OR, TN) and four Influenza Hospitalization Surveillance Project (IHSP) states (IA, MI, OH, and UT)." Although the caption notes that the data are "likely to be underestimated" because it's hard to capture every single hospitalization, the hospitalization rate for the 5-17 age group has pretty consistently been around 1 per 100k, even at the peaks of the pandemic. In fact, it's pretty remarkable that, even when there were massive spikes in hospitalizations of other age groups, child hospitalizations remained very low.

Also, this is a ridiculous statement:

As an aside, just because your relative risk might be low, doesn't mean that NO ONE is being hospitalized/facing death. The latest data from the COVKID project indicates that at least 4.6 kids per 1,000 reported cases are hospitalized, and this is AN UNDERCOUNT

— Quang Nguyen (@quangpmnguyen) March 19, 2021

Of course it's not "impossible" for a child to be hospitalized for COVID. So what? It's not impossible for a child to drown in a swimming pool either (in fact it's as least as likely as dying from COVID) - should kids never swim again?

Guilty feet have got no fins.

That's one tweak away from an a+ pun.

I mean, my god, even if it's double that, say 10 hospitalizations per reported cases, that's 1/100 reported cases. And hospitalized =/= critical care or ICU, in fact most of the time it doesn't. My daughter was hospitalized with pneumonia once. It sucked, but she was never on oxygen or in critical care, it was over in two days, and I wouldn't make dramatic changes to our lifestyle to prevent any outside chance that it happens again.

Also, I don't want to get hugely into this, but before someone says "child long covid," I have spent a lot of time trying to find credible evidence that it's widespread, and there just isn't much.

*10 hospitalizations per 1000 reported cases.

That's why I asked what the goal is, because if the goal is zero cases, zero transmission, who knows when we're going to get to that.

we're not. the question is how much risk is enough risk for educators/janitors/children and who gets to decide that.

we're not. the question is how much risk is enough risk for educators/janitors/children and who gets to decide that.

― G.A.G.S. (Gophers Against Getting Stuffed) (forksclovetofu), Friday, March 19, 2021 1:47 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

In this case the discussion was about vacations rather than schools. However, once every educator and janitor who wants the vaccine has the opportunity to get it, the risk for kids is low enough that it seems absurd not to have full time school.

As far as vacations, while I'm not planning one anytime soon, I don't think there are a lot of likely high risk scenarios created by vaccinated parents traveling with kids. I mean maybe if you want to be extra careful avoid crowded restaurants and try to eat outside/plan mostly outdoor activities?

i am getting sick and tired of the media's "here why you should be worried about this latest COVID development" news. not stuff like the Covid Tracking Project's news on Michigan, which was helpful and something we should be worried about and monitoring, but the 'evening news' networks who seem to diminish any positive news and refocus everything as a negative.

smother people in despair despite a vaccine campaign that is looking like it will be a success, and you'll make people decide to give up and start going out and saying "fuck it" with no mask, or will never leave their house again.

(that's actually why I LIKED the CTP article above, because it was fact-based and grounded).

my partner's sister is bringing her husband (both fully vaccinated) and her three under 13 kids to NYC next month to visit with us (both of us fully vaccinated by then too) and dropping the obviously NOT vaccinated kids off with us at our apartment so the two of them can go see a yankees game... and the sister works for moderna! So if she's okay with it, I'm gonna roll as best as I can. Gonna be weird though!

xpost re: my first sentence, it's not that we shouldn't be worried. it's that we already are worried, will being *more* worried help? it's really more we need the people that aren't worried to worry, and well...we've tried that for a year.

There was an NPR interview I heard a couple of weeks ago about the dangers of too much despair. The reporter recalled getting a text alert about a woman in Alaska who had an allergic reaction to one of the vaccines. She clicked through and read the story, and this was a woman who had a known history of allergic reactions, someone was there on site watching her for a reaction, and when she had a reaction was immediately treated for said reaction, and left safe and healthy. Which is exactly how it is supposed to work, yet it was blasted out as a breaking news alert!

just like when the news reports when one random person who was fully vaccinated contracts COVID anyway

It sucks, obviously, but it's a similar thing with how the media still has no idea how to treat a Biden presidency. It's way less fun to report on someone efficiently doing the work of government than it is "batshit guy says batshit thing". Similarly, they seem to have no interest in reporting stories of efficiently run vaccine campaigns/events and would rather dig up the most tangentially related scare story.

If it bleeds it leads, for-profit media is never going to be any different.

I don't think there are a lot of likely high risk scenarios created by vaccinated parents traveling with kids.

you know people who catch covid are a danger to others as well as themselves, right?

Oster's analogy to a vaccinated adult was kind of clumsy and unhelpful

it's grounds for a correction. it's wrong.

how can it be permissible

unvaccinated kids can act like normal when unvaccinated adults can act like normal, i.e. when we have herd immunity. we may reach that point by the summer, but their own vulnerability is beside the point when people are dying.

"beside the point" is a bit strong, but it's not the only issue.

the article says more, but the headline and explicit "act like they're vaccinated" advice are terrible.

This is both false and dangerous, @theatlantic. While most children do not suffer severe symptoms, they contract and transmit the disease.

Please correct it immediately. https://t.co/c0FAWTKnvm

— Carl T. Bergstrom (@CT_Bergstrom) March 19, 2021

To be clear: the article as a whole makes a nuanced argument that, whether or not you agree with it, is not what I’d call misinformation.

Extracting this quotation out of context to drive clicks IS misinformation—given that most people will read the tweet but not click.

— Carl T. Bergstrom (@CT_Bergstrom) March 19, 2021

Obviously that Atlantic article was upsetting to many people, many of whom I respect and admire.

I wanted to respond.

My goal in the article was to help parents understand what many people say when they say children are "low risk" (1/n)

— ProfEmilyOster (@ProfEmilyOster) March 19, 2021

Carl T. Bergstrom otm, Oster generally good on this stuff but stepped on a medium-sized rake this time, it happens to all of us

you know people who catch covid are a danger to others as well as themselves, right?

Yes, and I repeat, it's hard to imagine a lot of high risk scenarios involving taking your kids on vacation, meaning including scenarios where they would spread it to others.

it's grounds for a correction. it's wrong.

The Atlantic tweet clips the sentence before the end and leaves out the context.. What she said was not actually incorrect in context.

Yes, and I repeat, it's hard to imagine a lot of high risk scenarios involving taking your kids on vacation, meaning including scenarios where they would spread it to others.

you ... think it's hard to imagine covid being spread in restaurants and museums and airports?

Yes, and I repeat, it's hard to imagine a lot of high risk scenarios involving taking your kids on vacation, meaning including scenarios where they would spread it to others.

counterpoint: it's very easy