@alyakim This. When covid first hit, my worst fear wasn’t my baby dying immediately, it was him being admitted to hospital, on his own, for days or weeks. Not knowing where we were or why we wouldn’t come.
This terrifying mental image did manage to make my laissez-faire mother take masking/hand washing seriously around him, so it did some good!
@oppmuntre I also worry about unknown long-term effects of the virus. Not willing to take that chance yet just so I can, for example, go to the gym mask-free. But I do feel like a sitting duck now with all the restrictions removed. We got bamboozled when they lifted mask mandates on planes 12 hours before our return flight. We had no choice but to still fly home and get exposed by the probably 80% of people who didn’t wear masks on the flight. And my child is too young to wear a mask. We made it home unscathed, but eventually there will be a scenario while we are waiting for the kids vaxx where we won’t be so lucky.
@danny123 Tell me about it. The first real risk we’ve taken in two years was sending my son to nursery two days a week, because we were wary of stunting his social development now he’s getting to an age where they start interacting more with peers.
He caught covid his first bloody week. Absolutely infuriating.
@danny123 Ugh, I really hope for your sake this article is accurate with the June timeline then - maybe you can squeak in with one dose before he starts.
And thank you. We are fortunate that he didn’t get a really bad strain of it, it seems to be the one that’s just a bad cold (omicron BA2? Not sure), but who knows about long term effects. No point stressing, because nobody can tell us one way or another, but also, being a parent is to stress about them
@tonymaro Where did you get the 10 kids under 5 dying each month from Covid stat? Not denying it, just want to find better info. Most of what I find only lists pediatric stats and don’t give the numbers for only 0-5.
I don’t think the FDA approving will prevent these 10 deaths a month. Many parents aren’t going to get their toddlers vaccinated and vaccination isn’t as effective with omicron.
My theory is that the government is afraid to approve it so soon because they are on the hook for adverse events and not the vaccine manufacturers. It was blatantly obvious that there was a huge benefit for adults with even young adults seeing a huge benefit. So even if it turns out that 1 in 100,000 people or even more people get a severe adverse reaction, it was still very worth it to release it so early.
For toddlers, the risks are so much lower so they are playing it by the old rules and not fast tracking it just in case. It would be nice if we could just get an updated version for the new variants and have it be released to everyone.
@scottaaronsmith I thought there haven't been any adverse events among this age group in the trials. Also, it's not just about deaths. What about long COVID and long term effects that we might not even know about yet?
@imeldaspoetry yeah the problem has been lacking immune response, not adverse reactions.
though the myocardia thing has been brought up that doesn’t seem to be the reason for delay, just the less than robust immune response in some trial members
@nortan45 And look how heavily downvoted I get on most of my comments in those subs. I’m sorry I don’t come to Reddit to circle jerk in an echo chamber.
Covid has taken public opinion into two extremes. Either covid is a relatively harmless cold and the vaccine will hurt you or Covid will kill and injure everyone and the vaccine will save everyone. Neither one of these takes is true and I try to bring people back to a more moderate fact based take on these issues. When it comes to Covid, people don’t need to be obsessed with getting their toddlers vaccinated. It would be nice to have the choice but it isn’t some dire situation people here make it out to be.
@scottaaronsmith Between now and June, approximately 3 American children will die of covid. Don't you think it is worth rushing this for those 3 lives?
@thdev Can’t say that rushing it would save these lives. The parents would have to seek out the vaccine for their child which isn’t a huge priority for many parents. The vaccine has also lost a lot of efficacy with the new variants so all bets are off when a extremely vulnerable person gets Covid.
There are many viruses that are mild in children like Covid and vaccines aren’t even being considered.
The entire reason a Covid vaccine was created and fast tracked was because of how bad it effected older populations. It likely wouldn’t have been created if all ages were effected by it like toddlers are.
The government is also on the hook for any adverse effects and not the vaccine manufacturers. So when weighing the cost/benefit, the benefit for rushing it through for approval so soon is probably not there yet. Especially compared to the huge benefit seen when weighing the cost/benefit in adults.
@thdev Yes, my 3 year old had Covid. He was sick for one day while my wife and I who were boosted were sick for over a week.
My 3 year old has had several illnesses that were worse than Covid like croup, hand, foot, and mouth and a few others that were unidentified respiratory viruses.
How do you know it is long Covid? My 3-year old is constantly bringing home illnesses that aren’t covid since he started pre-school this year. He got sick a few times prior to school when playing with his school aged cousins but now that he goes to school it is very often.
This is a known phenomenon that happened prior to Covid when kids first start school and is much worse for us because our toddlers were very isolated during the pandemic. They are being exposed to so much now that everything is opened back up and they had no previous exposure to much of it.
