Kids are not essentially immune, that's an unfounded myth. And they can infect their parents and teachers. Children can get very, very ill when infected with Covid, although they often suffer few if any symptoms. It's rare, but a few have died from it. If we leave kids unvaccinated they can become incubators for mutation. The treatments are better now, but we don't want kids any more than adults to have to go through a bout with Covid. Apparently some strains are worse for children than others. Once a vaccine is approved for children, I expect schools to start requiring it for enrollment. And that's a good thing.
but if teachers and parents all get vaccinated, and kids are essentially no worse off for getting the virus than a common cold, why do they need vaccination? I posted the Florida numbers a few posts up. Kids are almost never hospitalized, much less die, from COVID.
A mere one page back on this thread there are multiple studies provided about children in schools. But you will never go read reputable studies.... you are too busy re-posting COVID conspiracy nonsense from nutters on Twitter.
That's a point that needs to be answered by a virologist. But my guess is that what they would say to you has to do with reducing both the opportunity to infect adults and opportunity for the virus to mutate. If it infects kids and their immune system fights it off, the virus's will mutate regardless, but the mutations that survive the kids immune system will be either those that were lucky, or those that were even luckier and are now resistant. New strains will survive to infect others and reproduce. I'm pretty sure that what a virologist would tell you is that our goal should be to reduce the incubators for the virus to the fewest possible. To that end vaccinating all the kids would be helpful. In the final analysis, the ideal, I am thinking, is to get virtually everyone on the planet vaccinated as rapidly as possible. If you think in terms of a mammalian gestation period, for Homo sapiens it's 9 months. But a bacterium replicates in twenty minutes. I don't know what that time is for a virus, but it should be longer in accord with typical incubation period for viral disease. Bacteria double every twenty minutes in an ideal environment. twenty minutes later you have twice as many bacteria, all capable of mutating, then four times as many, etc. Replication time is going to be longer for a virus because they replicate intracellularly. I would think hours to a few days. But each infected cell will release anywhere from a few thousand to many thousands of virus. So in the course of a typical infection, even in a child, the opportunities to mutate will be many powers of ten. The viruses that infect humans need a human host. Kids may not be quite as hospitable hosts as adults, but they are still, nevertheless, going to be hosts.
Yeah, I don't think so. If it infects a kid, or anyone else and their immune system "fights it off" it is because it killed the virus. The virus doesn't then go on to mutate in death or something. Viruses change from infected patients while they are contagious - but either vaccines work or they don't. You're not going to see a lot of people vaccinating their children with a vaccine developed in haste that is new. I won't, I don't care what you threaten me with. Ever hear of the "he's not contagious because his fever broke" from a doctor? Of course, you might not remember it because this was PC Science (Pre-Covid). Science was different back then, before it became political.
Remember you don't kill all the virus instantly. There is a period when you are contagious. First, if you are not vaccinated, think of all those little un-vaccinated kids running around, you have to gin up your immune system and get it producing antibodies. In the meantime the virus is busy as a beaver. In the end, either some combination of medical science and/or your immune system triumphs, or else the virus kills you. And while all this is going on, the virus is going to try and replicate itself and either make you very ill or just present a nice opportunity for you to cough on someone who may get very ill.
Not quite... a. Last I read those who were vaccinated also have to gin up their systems. I know the data is improving... so do you know otherwise? b. I have spoken with multiple doctors who say that it takes exposure over time. A single random cough from an asymptomatic person is very unlikely to spread the virus. Regardless of whether they have been vaccinated or not. A sick person with symptoms might be able spread whether they are vaccinated or not Per the trials, the vaccines apparently limits the severity of the symptoms in 95% of the healthy who received (and lower levels for the less healthy.) c. In short you can look at the virus as it turns people into the low risk as very few of the low risk get severe Covid, also. d, Data is still being analyzed as to whether the vaccine actually makes some people immune. (last I read) Healthy kids are not statically substantial vector. There is no logical reason to vaccinate a young healthy kid given what the vaccines purport to do. They just make a healthy kids the same low risk kid he or she already is. Unhealthy kids need to be protected right now anyway.
I will wait for longer terms studies before subjecting my kids (the ones under 18) to new tech for something which is less dangerous than the flu for healthy kids .. statistically speaking. By the way, just saw a headline, they halted the AZN vaccine for kids... today.