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felipeqq2 | 4 years ago

> doesn't kill people

the Omicron variant is less deadly, but it's far from not killing people. There are hundreds of kids dying with the Omicron right now. Should we deny vaccines to these children? The vaccines not only reduce the severity of symptoms, but also decrease the mortality and infection rate. Even if we try herd immunity, vaccines can still be used to save lives.

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TurkishPoptart|4 years ago

>There are hundreds of kids dying with the Omicron right now.

Can you cite a source for this?

PaulHoule|4 years ago

My whole family got Omicron. For us it was no big deal. All of us were vaccinated, I was boosted about two weeks prior. Vaccination did not stop us from getting it but it may well have modified the course of the disease.

People had no idea the highly transmissible Omicron variant was going to come along. Against prior variants the mRNA vaccines really looked like a miracle in that you could really get people vaccinated before the disease got to them. Moderna said they could have an Omicron vaccine ready in 100 days but I (I think the median person) got it 45 days after it was discovered.

I am sick of the armchair quarterbacking. In our family we had our own model for how it was going to progress last summer and we thought that the seasonal effects would really drive it, the Delta and Omicron variants broke all our assumptions.

The new battle is over variants it's a global problem. China has kept the virus out with strict but targeted lockdowns. Even if they achieve "zero COVID" that won't stop variants from being bred in the rest of the world. Even if the US controls it will spread in Africa and other developing countries. Even if the blue states do everything right than the red states will breed new variants.

Stricter controls in better controlled areas are going to have a limited impact, what will make a different is stricter controls in less controlled areas.

rurban|4 years ago

In the Omicron date range about 160 children died of COVID-19 in the US, which is 0.01%. This is about the same mortality percentage of the common cold.

But vaccines could help, sure.

Just, we don't know the percentage of severe existing preconditions in these mortalities, but the guess is 99.9%