[IkmoIkmo]

My reading so far has been different. Indeed children are far less likely to be at risk, yet several dozen kids have died due to Covid already, and a larger group has complications from long-covid. The studies in contrast show no major side effects of this scale in children, certainly not deadly side effects.

To link this to corruption is a radical idea that requires proof.

https://www.yalemedicine.org/news/covid-vaccine-for-ages-5-t...

Then there's a public health discussion that goes beyond the individual. Even if a measure has no benefit to an individual, but large benefit to the public, and very rare side effects, it makes total sense from a public policy perspective to encourage the measure. Taxes for example are a direct negative measure for individuals, but a very beneficial public measure that will in turn indirectly benefits individuals. I'll grant you that you can argue against making measures mandatory that are negative to the individual but positive to the public, but to encourage it as a voluntary measure of course makes total sense, and that's all the CDC has so far done for ages 5-11.

Given the exponential pandemic potential of Covid-19, one cannot simply exclude entire groups of people (e.g. young people) from access to vaccines and also expect Covid-19 to be mitigated as a public health disaster. Nor can you in the case of excluding a large group (young people), expect new and more dangerous variants to stop popping up. That's a public health matter, which indirectly also translates to negative effects on children's lives, e.g. parents who are stick or die, parents who lose jobs/businesses/income, kids who need to be homeschooled and fall behind academically and socially etc. That is why it is crucial for there to be wide public access to vaccines for all who wish to take it, as long as it is safe. These vaccines were tested and were found to be safe. The data from the study is public, I haven't seen anyone credible argue otherwise.

[kcplate]

For general average healthy kids out there, at some point you are adding an addition risk, albeit a small one, over the general Covid risk they already face.

There are certainly kids who have additional health factors that make them a higher risk for severe Covid illness if contracted, and I think it makes sense to consider vaccination there for best protection. However, it’s reasonable to me that some parents might express reluctancy at vaccinating a healthy child who is at such a statistically low risk of severe Covid disease especially since the vaccine does not necessarily protect against infection, instead seeming to provide much more benefit after infection at preventing severe disease.

I think the likelihood of severe disease with no vaccine and severe disease with vaccine in healthy children might be so low it’s statistically insignificant.