Coronavirus

[jfman]

Originally Posted by Pierre

Hospitalisations are no higher than they were on "Freedom Day".

Deaths are up from that date but neither metric is showing an exponential upturn that would scream action.

Considering we had just delayed “freedom day” three weeks I’m not sure that’s the great barometer you think it is.

Let’s face it you have never considered action - however little - to be warranted. Rises don’t have to be exponential to overwhelm NHS capacity either. Exponential rises would mean it would happen quicker. Other factors - like flu - mean winter isn’t equivalent to summer. It’s a moot point.

[papa smurf]

Originally Posted by jfman

Sounds like the British Exceptionalism that got us into this mess.

It’ll go away in the summer, being my favourite.

Just follow the commandments
1 thou shalt not leave home
2 thou shalt not work
3 thou shalt not have human contact
4 follow the teachings of the great sage.........

[jfman]

Originally Posted by papa smurf

Just follow the commandments
1 thou shalt not leave home
2 thou shalt not work
3 thou shalt not have human contact
4 follow the teachings of the great sage.........

Thou shalt not spend £5000 a year to get into London then £10 on lunch to keep Pret alive.

Separately, and interestingly, the Daily Mail graphs of the London School of Hygiene and Tripical Medicine Plan A vs Plan B say something differently from what OB portrays.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...crackdown.html

The best case scenario - “people remain cautious for a year” doesn’t sound like a normal economy to me.

[papa smurf]

Originally Posted by jfman

Thou shalt not spend £5000 a year to get into London then £10 on lunch to keep Pret alive.

As they say in business praise the board.

Interesting cognitive disassociations being displayed in this thread.

"Scientists don’t know what they’re doing, wanting to vaccinate school kids with a new vaccine without knowing what the long-term effects might be".

and

"Scientists know what they’re doing, allowing COVID to rip through school kids without knowing what the long-term effects might be".

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by Hugh

Interesting cognitive disassociations being displayed in this thread.

"Scientists don’t know what they’re doing, wanting to vaccinate school kids with a new vaccine without knowing what the long-term effects might be".

and

"Scientists know what they’re doing, allowing COVID to rip through school kids without knowing what the long-term effects might be".

Now that Margaret Thatcher's neo-liberalism has been buried and replaced by Boris's high-tax, high intervention state, some are yearning for free market days. The closest they'll come to it is by not wanting children vaccinated so they're willing this to happen.

Well, that's my explanation to explain the contradiction you've noted. Other explanations may exist.

[papa smurf]

Originally Posted by Hugh

Interesting cognitive disassociations being displayed in this thread.

"Scientists don’t know what they’re doing, wanting to vaccinate school kids with a new vaccine without knowing what the long-term effects might be".

and

"Scientists know what they’re doing, allowing COVID to rip through school kids without knowing what the long-term effects might be".

Bloody scientists

[Carth]

Originally Posted by Hugh

Interesting cognitive disassociations being displayed in this thread.

"Scientists don’t know what they’re doing, wanting to vaccinate school kids with a new vaccine without knowing what the long-term effects might be".

and

"Scientists know what they’re doing, allowing COVID to rip through school kids without knowing what the long-term effects might be".

Originally Posted by papa smurf

Bloody scientists

Bloody Forums

[nffc]

Originally Posted by Hugh

Interesting cognitive disassociations being displayed in this thread.

"Scientists don’t know what they’re doing, wanting to vaccinate school kids with a new vaccine without knowing what the long-term effects might be".

and

"Scientists know what they’re doing, allowing COVID to rip through school kids without knowing what the long-term effects might be".

Applies the same way to the other scenarios though doesn't it.


Scientists don't know what they're doing, allowing Covid to rip through school kids without knowing what the long term effects might be - we've already heard of plenty of parents whose kids have also struggled with longer covid type thingies (still really post viral stuff) despite not having been too badly ill with the virus. So you could also say that is true even if it does contradict naturally the 2nd statement, which is probably more based statistically than anything else in that it is known with as much degree of confidence that you'd expect in a virus which has only been around about 2 years that kids don't usually get seriously ill and don't usually go to hospital and die. But still, not known fully.


The main problem is that though there are several options to solve the spread in school kids none of them are a total win scenario.


You could let it rip, but that means more kids ill, more risk of complications, more risk of spill over into adults such as parents, staff, other family members, people who work in shops etc.

Vaccinating kids is a pandora's box and even the JCVI weren't confident which way to go. The risk to the kids of the virus complications is generally lower than adults and the risk of other complications from the vaccine such as heart issues in young teen lads, is much higher than adults, which stacks opposite to the argument for adults where risks of vaccine complications are much lower than risks of the virus (and probably lower in the example situation I mentioned than with kids). And given that the vaccines are predominantly effective against hospitalisation, which doesn't happen in kids as much anyway, and less so against spread and mild illness, you're looking at the argument of "if it's effective enough to stop 1 kid in 30 getting covid at all that's 1 less missing school because of it" which is still a benefit but less marginal than if it was like for example 1 in 2.
You could close the schools, but that has longer term detriment potentially lifetime on their education and prospects no doubt more so than any effects from covid.


Scientists as you will no doubt be aware are all from different backgrounds and different specialism (you only need to look at who's on SAGE for this, we have a mixture of doctors, behavioural scientists etc etc) and of course different views. As the virus and knowledge of it evolves people will change their minds.

[jfman]

The JCVI minutes from May partially read like an anti-vaxxers manifesto.

If the EU, the Russians or the Chinese had state funded behavioural scientists on a committee justifying permitting unmitigated spread in children to boost population level immunity at the same time we were vaccinating kids we would be absolutely laughing our socks off at them.

[OLD BOY]

It’s a sensible policy. Only a small minority of children are adversely impacted by actually getting the virus. Probably cancelled out by adverse reactions to the vaccinations.

We’ve been through this before.

The vaccine is very safe in children.
The virus is very safe in children.
But
Both the virus and the vaccine can cause serious illness in a very few cases
And
After two doses of the vaccine, in teenagers, the risk of complications rises more than the risk of infection falls.

So the major reason for vaccination of children is not to protect children but to protect the population from potential mutations in persistent wells of infection;
But
There are ethical questions around giving someone medicine that is not for their benefit, especially when there is a small, but present, risk that the medicine can harm them.

So is the benefit to the wider population compelling enough to impose an albeit small risk of complications on a child?

Resolving this question is a matter of medical ethics. It’s the reason why, on present evidence, we don’t vaccinate young children and we only vaccinate teenage children once.

[jfman]

It’s surely also a question of medical ethics to knowingly and wilfully expose the young to a disease for the purpose of boosting population level immunity?

It’s right there in the minutes that they’ve suppressed for months - removing the right of parents to make informed decisions before the schools returned and exposure was most likely to happen as mitigations and contact tracing were removed in schools.

It’s also surely a question of medical ethics why the CMOs all - almost immediately - overruled the JCVI non-decision they took months to make despite the MHRA approving the vaccines as safe and effective?

It is also a significant question of scientific ethics for a pseudo-regulator to make decisions and not publish their evidence base and rationale for peer review until after hundreds of thousands of infections have occurred off the back of it. -

---------- Post added at 14:47 ---------- Previous post was at 14:45 ----------

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

It’s a sensible policy. Only a small minority of children are adversely impacted by actually getting the virus. Probably cancelled out by adverse reactions to the vaccinations.

The evidence from around the world shows no such thing at all. However, evidence of the health implications of Covid-19 are always going to be dismissed by someone like yourself who has refused to acknowledge the health impacts since the very start.

Originally Posted by jfman

It’s surely also a question of medical ethics to knowingly and wilfully expose the young to a disease for the purpose of boosting population level immunity?

It’s right there in the minutes that they’ve suppressed for months - removing the right of parents to make informed decisions before the schools returned and exposure was most likely to happen as mitigations and contact tracing were removed in schools.

It’s also surely a question of medical ethics why the CMOs all - almost immediately - overruled the JCVI non-decision they took months to make despite the MHRA approving the vaccines as safe and effective?

It is also a significant question of scientific ethics for a pseudo-regulator to make decisions and not publish their evidence base and rationale for peer review until after hundreds of thousands of infections have occurred off the back of it. - [

I’m not sure whether it’s quite right to accuse anyone of “knowingly and wilfully” exposing anyone to covid when we are in a pandemic and it is already at large in the community. You make it sound like they’re swabbing kids with it during morning assembly.

That aside, inaction is a question of medical ethics as much as action is. Which course of actions causes less harm? The data says restricting use of vaccination in children causes less harm to the individual.

[jfman]

Originally Posted by Chris

I’m not sure whether it’s quite right to accuse anyone of “knowingly and wilfully” exposing anyone to covid when we are in a pandemic and it is already at large in the community. You make it sound like they’re swabbing kids with it during morning assembly.

That aside, inaction is a question of medical ethics as much as action is. Which course of actions causes less harm? The data says restricting use of vaccination in children causes less harm to the individual.

It’s in there in the minutes whether you consider it reasonable or otherwise. The basic principles of managing a pandemic - testing, contract tracing and isolating were removed from teenagers in this country (for the purpose of boosting population level immunity) at the exact same time vaccinations were rolling out to protect teenagers in others.

I fully expect you to continue to defend the indefensible, so I’m content to leave it there.