by CUBluejays (2021-08-02 13:46:15)
In reply to: Re: the increase in Covid and reinstated distancing/masks posted by mocopdx
not physicians that care for kids.
COVID has killed 350-500 kids during a time where masks, distancing, school closures, etc where happening. Flu in that time period killed 1. Now we are removing all those measures and kids less than 12 can't get the vaccine.
Death isn't the only downside of COVID for kids. Long COVID in kids is real. Myocarditis happens in about 1/50 and it tends to be more severe than than the myocarditis from the vaccines that happens somewhere between 1/3,000-6,000 kids in Israel. 95% of those cases from Israel where asymptomatic.
Pediatric associations have long supported return to in-person school on the low risk to kids and developmental harm to cutting out socialized learning.
Yes, anyone with a very low risk of harm can be among the very few outliers. That's the case for anything.
That doesn't mean all child physicians want to avoid all safeguards. But the risk is low enough that they adamantly want in-person school, and they have before widespread vaccine distribution.
Sure, while we have big outbreaks, mask up the kids. No issue here. But if we return to levels we had a month ago, I'm open to removing masks. They still pose social developmental challenges that should be balanced to some degree with estimated risk.
I have no issue with in person schools. My kids went to school all year last year in masks. My son went to speech therapy last year in a mask. He no longer needs speech therapy. My kids won’t go to school without a mask until they are vaccinated and the cases have dropped.
COVID is a risk for kids that is my issue.
last sentence?
If people are going to be militant about "proving" that masks work, it stands to reason that the risks of masks shouldn't be intentionally overstated. The only data I've seen is related to (potential) speech development in babies. Which doesn't apply if we're talking about school-age children. Admittedly I don't keep up with child development research, so I'm asking honestly because I certainly could have missed it.
Boss hog.
Further, how do you know that masking was a better prophylactic than say symptom trackers, temperature checking, hygiene monitoring, and attendance bars for symptomatic students? You do not because no studies were done on that. But masking signals compliance so it is preferred.
We will do Whatever is asked for kids to be in school. That said everything else posted here is junk.
How many is too many? Not relevant to how we make decisions.
If we had to fight ww2 today we would lose with the way some of you all think.
patients in the hospital. There was 1 flu death in children last year.
The risks of transmission and for i fection are different for, say, 7 and u der and 12-17.
I normally don't judge these sorts of things, but we just have to say no to pedophilia.
Of course it’s supposed to be ( age/2 ) + 7 (any Google search tells you that) but he (or maybe she) flipped it.
For all that is remembered back here, I’m surprised how many folks forgot that one.
known as Wooderson.
If Elvis and Charlie Chaplin could do it why not me?
The linked article has direct links the CDC page.
At least as it relates to mortality. Caveats surrounding the age for "child" based on variability and state reporting. Appendix 2C, page 20.
appear to only be for 43 states, plus NYC, Guam and Puerto Rico. The total would presumably be higher if all 50 states were included.
Numbers need context.
I'll do some of the research. 4,000 kids in 2016 (source linked, USNWR). 8x covid. But we all let our kids ride in cars.
I'm pro vaccine and all that, but people are out of their minds on what risk levels really are.
What is the risk of dying or serious issues from covid ... If you are under 20 it's tiny. If you are over 20 and vaccinated it is tiny. If you are over 20 and didn't get the vaccine - it is NOT tiny, get the damn vaccine.
If you do what is the difference between this and a mask?
Wait, that sounds insane.
We were told that mandated car seats and seat belts would flatten the curve of pediatric auto fatalities. We signed up for them based on our understanding they wouldn’t be around forever.
Now we have MUCH safer cars that prevent a lot more deaths than anything we had before. With improvements to air bags, brakes, car design, automated safety features we can/should remove the car seat & seat belt mandates which don’t even prevent deaths that well anyways.
If people choose to drive cars without automated safety features maybe they should use car seats and seat belts but we shouldn’t have to. If they (or their kids) die, they die, it was their choice. Natural selection
Put chocolate pudding in my shoe and make it look like I shot diarrhea down my leg?
roads have speed limits, stop signs, lights, kids cant sit in the front, without car seats, and many other laws and regulations, let alone rules the driver must abide by (licenses, no drinking, etc).
Thats what we do to protect children from driving accidents. Asking to wear a mask seems quite minor compared to all of the above. And I cant stand seeing my daughters, and my teacher wife, wear a mask. It sucks.
I agree its a tiny death number and get the vaccine. We shouldnt make it out to be bigger than it is, but comparing covid deaths of children to car accidents or drownings, isnt really telling the whole story. If we can do anything to protect our children from potential disease, death, and potentially long term side effects, that is a small inconvenience, shouldn't we do so?
I much rather have the kids wear masks than go back to hybrid or distance learning.
Outside of birth defects.
For the record my family and I wear masks when asked so I'm not a die hard on this issue. But the standard of "We should do ANYTHING" to protect children is interesting.
Because we do not enforce pool fence laws. We don't even try. Most states have made it illegal to construct a pool without a fence and yet it is not enforced in slightest. 11 kids die each day. So if the standard is we should take any measure to protect kids, why don't we have pool inspectors that go door to door and inspect your backyard pool fence?
I'm not sure how I feel about mandatory pool inspections to be honest.
choice to have a pool without a fence is highly unlikely to cause me a problem without my input. If I know you have a pool without a fence, I can choose not to come to your house.
As for the "attractive nuisance" aspect of unsupervised children wandering into a neighbor's pool, I have control over whether I buy a house near an unsecured pool. And if my neighbor puts in a pool without a fence in an area where this is regulated by statue, I absolutely would be calling the city.
"I agree its a tiny death number and get the vaccine. We shouldnt make it out to be bigger than it is .."
We are both pretty data based and of course agree. But here is where I part ways: "If we can do anything to protect our children" (emphasis mine). No, I think there should be limits to how much risk mitigation is done based on the size of the risk. Again, we tolerate the deaths of 4,000 kids (and 30K adults) rather than have 25 MPH speed limits.
I agree masks are better than distance learning. Ours went back today and the district only recommends masks. They had theirs on for family harmony, but like "take your mask off and smile for a picture of the first day of school" just kind of was sad.
But yeah, i love a good data/stats debate.
As far as Anything, i use masks and some social distancing as Anything. Im not in favor of remote learning or keeping them isolated in any other way, unless a new variant that is deadlier to children comes around.
said most masks that people wear are ineffective. And that if people wear masks they should wear N95 masks - there are issues with too.
And, of course, he's specifically said his message isn't "Masks are useless" and "We shouldn't use masks". But that is, of course, what Clay Travis wants you to believe.
At the outset, I want to make several points crystal clear:
I support the wearing of cloth face coverings (masks) by the general public.
Stop citing CIDRAP and me as grounds to not wear masks, whether mandated or not.
Don't, however, use the wearing of cloth face coverings as an excuse to decrease other crucial, likely more effective, protective steps, like physical distancing
Also, don't use poorly conducted studies to support a contention that wearing cloth face coverings will drive the pandemic into the ground. But even if they reduce infection risk somewhat, wearing them can be important.
EDIT: And if you have read through what he's said over time, I suspect the better summation is "If we are going to wear masks, we should be wearing better masks." Hard to disagree with that.
Partial text, full transcript available at the link:
I just want to add one last context on masking. I know that I'm not in the mainstream on this issue. Every time I hear this term masking, it's like for me nails on the chalkboard because we are not giving our citizens the information they need and deserve. We've already pointed out on multiple occasions the limits that face cloth coverings and surgical masks play in reducing the actual transmission of this virus. The studies that have been done have been largely flawed in this regard. In the meantime, the use of N95 respirators or KN95 approved respirators could have a dramatic impact and even the availability of N95 or KN95 and now we have even KN95 respirators available for children. I wish we would talk about not masking but talking about what needs to be done. So I am very, very strong supporter of respiratory protection. Don't get me wrong, I'm not an antimasker at all, just the opposite. But I'm saying use the materials that will actually protect you. As I pointed out before, we know that if you use a face cloth covering, you may get five to 10 minutes additional protection in a room where the virus is present than if you wore nothing at all. That's not a real margin of safety. N95 respirators may give you well under 25 to 30 hours of protection. So I want to get us off of just masking and that's this whole focus, the last 24 hours or 36 hours about masking. Have you seen anybody mentioning about, by the way, don't wear it under your nose that chin diaper? Again, we continue to see up to 25 percent of people wearing a mask under their nose. As I've said so many times, it's like fixing three of the five screen doors in your submarine. So I hope we get this message out. We can right now greatly reduce transmission, if people are using N95s. They are abundantly available your hardware stores, online ordering sites, etc. They are available. So I hope we promote good respiratory protection, not just the concept of masking, and that could have a real important difference right now.
I think that is a slight difference. Surgoen masks were always supposed to improve your odds of preventing the virus, not a panacea against it. Obviously n95s are much better. I just bought some new ones myself last week.
It wasnt clear to me if he said wearing a surgeons mask are ineffective against someone with covid if both are wearing the surgeon mask.
movement in or out."
Let me add he didn't say there were issues with n95 masks and that is my input. But N95 are more expensive, need to be well fitted to work and need to be either cleaned or replaced regularly.
if he was talking about just an individual or if they dont matter if everyone is wearing that type of mask.
Either way, I think its been known for a while that the surgeon mask was not nearly as effective as an n95. Yes, they are more expensive, its one of the reasons people like myself think Trump failed us originally by not making a full on effort to make more of these types of masks. More supply would presumably make the costs low. Biden may have to start doing the same thing, but the delta variant outbreak is no where near where we were pre vaccine obviously. But it would be nice if N95s were offered for free to those who cant afford them.
Or is there a difference?
I have a couple boxes of KN95's.
An N95 has to be fit tested so their is no leak. Males cannot have much facial hair as even stubble can interfere and cause a leak.
A KN95 is made of the same material but it is not fit tested so there isn’t a tight seal.
chinese approved. They are supposedly similar but i would assume N95s are a bit better. But the CDC said KN95s are a suitable substitute.
I would guess the hierachy of masks goes
cloth covering
surgeon mask
KN95
N95
SonoMask
Israeli grade Gas mask
Mostly kidding.
WITH the current measures, 4,000 a year die. How stressed do we get about getting in the car? But we should alter our daily interactions for 500?
I just like using the car analogy because it is a risk we knowingly and willingly accept to enjoy life. And it works as a thought exercise. If you are 70 years old and not vaccinated, you chances of dying from Covid are 500%-1000% greater than the chances of dying in a car accident. That is significant.
and I would argue you may have unknowingly cherry picked the data. Your data includes teenagers, who presumably make up a large percentage of that number due to their own driving ( we all know how safe teenage drivers are). Perhaps there is a better report, but CDC link below suggests the number is much lower for children
In the United States, motor vehicle crashes are a leading cause of death among children. In 2018, 636 children 12 years old and younger died in motor vehicle traffic crashes, and more than 97,000 were injured. Of the children 12 years old and younger who died in a crash in 2018 (for which restraint use was known), 33% were not buckled up.
So the number who are in seatbelts (for this year)is almost exactly the same as covid deaths (making the assumption most of those without seatbelts would not have died if buckled up)
To add to the teens dying in car accidents I found this: Obviously 13-16 year are presumably mostly passengers. However, the stats of teenagers driving as the worst group of drivers is telling to counter your 4k stats
https://www.cdc.gov/transportationsafety/teen_drivers/teendrivers_factsheet.html
In 2019, almost 2,400 teens in the United States aged 13–19 were killed, and about 258,000 were treated in emergency departments for injuries suffered in motor vehicle crashes.1 That means that every day, about seven teens aged 13–19 died due to motor vehicle crashes, and hundreds more were injured. In addition, motor vehicle crash deaths among teens 15–19 years of age resulted in about $4.8 billion in medical and work loss costs for crashes that occurred in 2018.1
Who is most at risk?
The risk of motor vehicle crashes is higher among teens aged 16–19 than among any other age group. In fact, per mile driven, teen drivers in this age group are nearly three times as likely as drivers aged 20 or older to be in a fatal crash.
The original point of the thread was masks/distancing. Those are basically the "seatbelts" of COVID. A minor annoyance that can be effective. Are 500 child deaths worth that annoyance (at least as it relates to schools and high-transmission areas?) I'd say yes.
EDIT: And it should be noted that those 300 deaths are with schools using mitigation measures, hybrid, etc. In other words, 300 is the number with seatbelts. What's the number when we go without? We may find out. Why we would choose to figure out that number is beyond me, though.
(65 Covid and pneumonia included in both). Total of 1,293
Age 0-17 accounted for 0.06% of Covid deaths, 0.15% of pneumonia deaths and 2.03% of influenza deaths.
Which was prior to COVID and the lockdowns/masking. If you look at the numbers once March and the lockdowns started the flu disappeared. During the last flu season 11/2020-3/2021 there was 1 pediatric flu death.
the chart is using for children?
Because even using the five month window you want for the flu only, the chart shows one every month in November through and including March, then one more in April, one more in May, and two in June.
And Pneumonia deaths exceed Covid deaths in 0-17 year olds from your period of November 2020-March 2021 as well.
Finally, the 147 0-17 Covid deaths over the November-March flu season would be fewer deaths than the typical flu season, IIRC.
children and young, healthy people were hit particularly hard because (the theory goes) older people had been through previous flu epidemics in the late 19th century and had some immunity.
Imagine if there was an effective vaccine like the ones we've seen for Covid-19. I bet the currently vaccine-hesitant would be banging down the doors to get the shots, with the exception of the nutty anti-vaxxers who are against all vaccines.
It's obviously a very lucky and very good thing that child deaths are very low. But it also means is that too many people take a cavalier attitude about it.
need analysis of the risk/benefit.
It's obviously not reasonable to outlaw kids riding in cars. Just like I'd say it's not reasonable that the response to COVID at this point is to shutdown schools.
But how many deaths is a reasonable tradeoff when the things we're talking about is masks and mandatory vaccination? I'm going to go on record to say it's as close to zero as you can get.
This isn't even wading into the idea that COVID outbreaks in schools are going to disrupt the year, and potentially shutdown classrooms, even if they don't result in death. Those that have been forcefully talking about in-person school should actually be arguing for masking and mandatory vaccination as a method to avoid said disruptions. It's almost like they're more interested in school board kabuki theater, and not the actual issue of keeping kids in school.
There needs to be a risk/benefit analysis as you noted. I don't know that I agree the relative weight that tradeoffs are scored by you. but the point is there are tradeoffs.
We could eliminate almost 33,000 deaths (all ages) by just making all cars have a governed maximum speed of 25 MPH. Is people being in a rush a reasonable tradeoff for 33,000 deaths? We as a society have actually decided it is. (And actually much more death was ok as a tradeoff in the past.)
But my point was just to state this "zero risk" mentality is a really bad way to think.
Proof of vaccination should be required in schools. Those under 12 should be masked. If you choose not to be vaccinated, masks should be mandatory with surveillance testing. If you don't want to do that, then a hybrid option should be provided.
EDIT: And I would also say that I don't get it when people say "only" 300 kids died of COVID. Can someone give me the acceptable number of child deaths that balances out asking kids to mask and others to provide proof of vaccination? 50? 100? 200? 1000? Because that number isn't going to stay static at 300 if we decide on the "hold my beer" approach. That doesn't even factor in the other risks that you bring up.
It dovetails with my post below. Sure, the chance of "my" kid dying is low. But get enough childhood infections, and someone will.
It seems as though your answer is zero, which feels like one of the underlying concerns (another being the risks to children being used to justify shutting down schools again, an absolutely unacceptable resolution at all levels). If zero childhood COVID deaths is the only scenario wherein masks can be discarded, we will be masking until the end of time. Maybe that's okay, but that's what's implied.
I agree it's not going to be zero, but I think it's backwards to suggest the burden should be on people supporting masks to show they might prevent "enough" deaths.
I mean, based on the fact that 350 (at least) died with many schools shut down or using masks/distancing, the number won't be zero. So the question is what kind of increase (plus general disruptions to clarrooms if there are outbreaks) is everyone willing to tolerate to not have to wear them. Ultimately, the problem is that you don't get a do-over.
And it's not forever. It's until vaccines are approved for 2+, which should hopefully be by early next year.