It’s really hard. DH has commented that we are basically feeling like whatever the current situation is, our evaluation is that it’s consistently one-half to a full step looser than what we think is prudent. I think we’ve just resigned ourselves to being out-of-step until the DS11’s can be vaccinated.
We plan to do hotel pools in Orlando, but are deferring water parks because we don’t want to deal with the unmasked queues for slides.
I feel the same way. For example, when I finally felt it was safe to do something as long as everyone was masked … the mask requirements were eliminated.
Welcome to Party Pooper’s anonymous. I feel that way around DW’s family. They are much looser than us and think I’m too conservative with the Covid risk.
I saw this today and after reading your post, thought of you.
I was working a COVID vaccine clinic today giving Johnson & Johnson vaccines. When giving vaccines many people want to share their COVID stories with me, either when they had COVID or someone they knew who had COVID, or people who had bad reactions from the vaccine. Today I heard the saddest story I have heard so far. An elder gentleman ( old enough to have been eligible for vaccine since at least January) stated 1 of his friends just died from COVID. He continued stated he had breakfast with his friend 3 weeks ago and asked him if he was getting his COVID vaccine or not. The friend stated he and his wife decided to wait awhile to get vaccinated. The next week the friend went to a family reunion and contracted COVID there. The following week he died. It made my heart break that this person could still be alive if he had made his decision sooner instead of waiting.
I saw this today and think its amazing. It made me wonder what % of the population in the US are under 18, and what % of those have got their shots?
Inquiring minds want to know.
That data is all out there and fairly easy to find, but I have TPs to update! 
understandable, I can research I just don’t have time myself, flying out tomorrow!
Yeah, not sure I’m buying the logic there.
“But the risk that a child gets seriously ill is extremely small — comparable to the risk that children face of having serious illness as a result of the flu.
To date, out of more than 74 million children in the United States, there have been about 300 COVID-19 deaths and a few thousand serious illnesses. By comparison, the CDC registered 188 flu-related deaths in children during the 2019-2020 flu season. (This past year, there was essentially no flu season at all.)”
So even with the vast amount of mitigations in place, pediatric Covid deaths are over 50% higher than flu deaths. And there isn’t any hard data included on long term health consequences.
Is the risk of death low? Yes. As low as the flu? No.
Comparison of long term health consequences? TBD.
I was reading this earlier today: A study analyzed the various health complications that can occur in patients after recovering from acute COVID. The study included nearly 30,000 COVID patients. Around 14 percent of recovered patients had at least one new health problem that required medical care. More than 50 distinct new health problems were identified, including respiratory failure, abnormal heart rhythms, abnormalities in blood clotting, diabetes, neurological problems, and liver problems. Read the study.
I’m not really looking at the headline. I’m looking at the rest of the article. Headlines are to get people to read. I’ve read any article that has to do with children and Covid because I have 3 kids. I will say though that in the grand scheme of things, 300 to 188 deaths statistically is not a large difference.
I was looking at the rest of the article and have read similar information from other sources. Covid does not affect children in the same way as it does adults. It is not a zero risk proposition, but it is significantly smaller, especially with adults and older children getting vaccinated. My 12 year olds are in the process of getting vaccinated. My 9 year old will get his too when the time comes. But if mask mandates drop completely before that time, because enough people have been vaccinated I’m not making my 9 year old wear a mask or skip out on activities because he can’t get vaccinated. He has been participating in activities with other children indoors and outdoors, typically with a mask (sometimes the masks slip down during soccer games and practice). He has also been in in-person school all year, with masks.
I posted the article because it does express some of the back and forth parents are feeling in regards to the recent mask mandate changes.
I’ve also had some thoughts to move ppl to get vaccinated, and I know someone in the industry has already considered this; Health Insurance: covid gets labeled a preexisting condition, ppl not vaccinated cannot get health Insurance or have markedly higher premiums. Not to be flip but, the worst outcome of the flu is death but we still have a way to go to know all the possible outcomes of surviving covid.
Also, my understanding is that the majority (vast majority?) of the flu deaths in kids are in unvaccinated kids. I suspect most parents who are concerned about Covid risk are having their kids vaccinated for flu. So in a child under 12 who can’t get vaccinated for Covid, but can get vaccinated for flu, the risk differential is likely much larger.
Yeah, they seem to be really short on this kind of data on kids (yet). We (as a country) actually did a really impressive job of protecting our kids for the first several months. So I expect the data on kids to lag a bit.
Absolutely not disagreeing with this. But the “it’s no different than the flu” premise is totally tired and off putting to me, and that is put forth in the body of the article, not just the headline.
As you said, there is not as much data on children. It could very well be for them, not much different than the flu. (For adults, especially those in the middle, it is a different story).
I also saw this today as well:
It was also in a NYT article, but it’s behind a paywall. This is a small study and one that needs further study, as stated in the article. Of course no one wants their child very ill, especially with an unfamiliar virus.
Can anyone explain to me the difference between flu stats people are reporting and data referred to in this section on the CDC website?
The ones I have seen are from prior flu seasons. Although I did find our state’s flu data for this year on the the state website. It’s almost non-existent. There were 45 hospitalizations and 21 deaths in PA due to the flu for 2020/2021.
