CDC removing mask mandate what will you do with dc under 12

[KSera]

1 hour ago, hshibley said:

If you go to a store like Costco which currently has the policy that if you are vaccinated you do not need to mask and you are not vaccinated and do not mask to me that qualifies as lying. Granted no one is at door asking but you know the policy.  

I think that’s qualifies as lying as well, but I think there’s a behavioral difference in how many people would be willing to lie by just not wearing a mask when they are supposed to, versus those who are willing to actually verbally tell a lie, like if they were out right asked at the door if they were vaccinated. I think there are a lot more people in the former group than the latter. 

[kokotg]

31 minutes ago, Plum said:

Based on her risk assessment 

Yes. But the topic of discussion here is whether the CDC guidelines about vaccinated people will affect the behavior of unvaccinated people. The early answers on this thread suggest that they certainly will. The guidelines on masking for kids have not changed one bit.

[Penelope]

1 hour ago, Not_a_Number said:

Yes, I’m saying that. And you’re saying it doesn’t, I believe, or that at least we can’t be sure. And I was trying to figure out your model for what is going on there, then.

Well, I really don’t know. Those two papers from Brazil suggested that mortality was not higher for kids. I can’t go by a few newspaper articles and assume they must have it right, while thinking that the people collating the data are the ones who are mixed up.
 

Our own experts aren’t warning it is definitely more virulent for kids; in fact, no one seems to be talking about it anywhere, except *journalists* who are in the business of getting us to click. How do I even know their fact-checking got the numbers correct? These days, I do not. The number you quoted for percentage of pediatric deaths in the US, you got from googling, right? First thing that came up for me, too, only I don’t think that number is correct, because I took another minute and looked at actual numbers, not the ones that article used, which I think were from two asynchronous time periods. 

The article in another thread is another example of this. An official in Singapore is quoted as saying that the reason they are closing schools is that some of the virulents are worse for kids, and the “Indian” variant is implied. But the very next sentence says that the few kids who have contracted Covid have very mild disease or are asymptomatic! 
And this is taken as another reason to freak out that the variants are coming and all of our kids will end up in the hospital. But there is never anything to back it up.

The same thing happened early on with B117, a few news reports that it was worse in kids, first in the Uk, then when it came here. But that was false. The fear-based reporting on variants has been insane. 

Edited May 18, 2021 by Penelope

[Not_a_Number]

7 minutes ago, Penelope said:

Our own experts aren’t warning it is definitely more virulent for kids; in fact, no one seems to be talking about it anywhere, except *journalists* who are in the business of getting us to click. How do I even know their fact-checking got the numbers correct? These days, I do not. The number you quoted for percentage of pediatric deaths in the US, you got from googling, right? First thing that came up for me, too, only I don’t think that number is correct, because I took another minute and looked at actual numbers, not the ones that article used, which I think were from two asynchronous time periods. 

No, I just divided the numbers on the CDC site...

What are the actual numbers for Brazil, then? We can divide ourselves.

[Penelope]

14 minutes ago, kokotg said:

Yes. But the topic of discussion here is whether the CDC guidelines about vaccinated people will affect the behavior of unvaccinated people. The early answers on this thread suggest that they certainly will. The guidelines on masking for kids have not changed one bit.

Mostly it is, but there are some posters here who have said they want masking until children can get vaccinated in the fall, and even some of the places that still have mask mandates now either have a date to remove them soon, or a metric, or are talking about stopping in a couple of weeks. So this isn’t only about the CDC guidelines. 

I think the official guidelines on masking children under 12 will change as cases fall further,  but right now, you are right, they are unvaccinated and are recommended to mask. But with no mandates, more people are going to gradually stop doing it, anyway. The changes just happened, and it takes time for people to loosen up. 
 

I know it’s shocking, 😂 but many people also aren’t following pandemic developments as closely as they once did, and as people on the forum still do.  There are pragmatic folks, probably trending younger, who will do what’s required at whatever place they are wanting to enter and not worry about it from there. They are thinking, okay, so what are the rules this week? 
 

 

[KSera]

16 minutes ago, Penelope said:

Our own experts aren’t warning it is definitely more virulent for kids; in fact, no one seems to be talking about it anywhere, except *journalists* who are in the business of getting us to click.

I actually have seen a number of doctors and virus scientist types concerned about it, particularly as regards children. I’ll have to pay attention next time I see that and share here. I do overall see them saying that the variants aren’t as scary at this point as we are being made to think by the media, but that there are some concerns and the biggest concern is that with so much virus out there right now, a truly scary variant could still happen. I did see one article once by a scientist explaining why he was optimistic this particular virus was unlikely to be able to mutate to that degree, but I don’t recall the exact explanation. I liked that one though 😁. Much nicer to read than the scary ones. 

[kokotg]

6 minutes ago, Penelope said:

Mostly it is, but there are some posters here who have said they want masking until children can get vaccinated in the fall, and even some of the places that still have mask mandates now either have a date to remove them soon, or a metric, or are talking about stopping in a couple of weeks. So this isn’t only about the CDC guidelines. 


 

 

But the specific post both of us were talking about was the very first response in a thread about how people will respond to the new CDC guidelines. So I was very much only talking about CDC guidelines in this specific instance. Of course the thread has meandered far and wide since then.

[SKL]

36 minutes ago, kokotg said:

Yes. But the topic of discussion here is whether the CDC guidelines about vaccinated people will affect the behavior of unvaccinated people. The early answers on this thread suggest that they certainly will. The guidelines on masking for kids have not changed one bit.

Most of this conversation has been about whether parents would now be MORE careful with their kids because some of the over-12s in the community might be both unmasked and unvaxed.  Some have said yes, this increases their concerns and they will not lighten up as much as they had previously intended to.  Others have said no, this has not changed the risks enough to require more restrictions on their kids.

[SKL]

20 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

No, I just divided the numbers on the CDC site...

What are the actual numbers for Brazil, then? We can divide ourselves.

I am not following Brazil closely, but just wanted to comment.

When there is a big wave of virus going through a population, you're going to see more sick/hospitalized kids with it, just because you're going to see it everywhere.  It may not be the reason the kids are sick/hospitalized in the first place.

Part of this may go back to whether people are dying "with" Covid vs. "from" Covid.  When cases are low, it may be just a blip, but when cases are high, it can confuse issues.

[kokotg]

4 minutes ago, SKL said:

Most of this conversation has been about whether parents would now be MORE careful with their kids because some of the over-12s in the community might be both unmasked and unvaxed.  Some have said yes, this increases their concerns and they will not lighten up as much as they had previously intended to.  Others have said no, this has not changed the risks enough to require more restrictions on their kids.

I understand, but this was very specifically about one response (well, three) where someone said that now that the CDC guidelines have changed they would let their unvaccinated children go without masks. It wasn't about the entire thread, it was about specific posts early on. 

[SKL]

2 minutes ago, kokotg said:

I understand, but this was very specifically about one response (well, three) where someone said that now that the CDC guidelines have changed they would let their unvaccinated children go without masks. It wasn't about the entire thread, it was about specific posts early on. 

The OP literally said this:

"Assuming all states will soon follow CDC guidance and allow the fully vaccinated to go unmasked (which I am completely comfortable with for my vaccinated self) based on the honor system and the majority of the antivaxxers will lie what are you planning to do with your under 12 dc?"

In other words, to you feel like you need to be more careful with your under-12s because we can't trust unvaccinated over-12s?

And I took most of the responses to mean, no, I'm not going to be more careful than I would be had the CDC not made this announcement.

[kokotg]

1 minute ago, SKL said:

The OP literally said this:

"Assuming all states will soon follow CDC guidance and allow the fully vaccinated to go unmasked (which I am completely comfortable with for my vaccinated self) based on the honor system and the majority of the antivaxxers will lie what are you planning to do with your under 12 dc?"

In other words, to you feel like you need to be more careful with your under-12s because we can't trust unvaccinated over-12s?

And I took most of the responses to mean, no, I'm not going to be more careful than I would be had the CDC not made this announcement.

The VERY FIRST RESPONSE (which is what this side conversation was about) literally says that if she had kids that age she would let them go without masks now. Then like 2 other people say something similar very early on. I was responding to a couple of very specific comments. That's why I quoted them. I'm not talking about "most of the responses." There's a specific sub-conversation going on where someone asked if they'd missed that people on this board had said they (as unvaccinated people) would stop masking because of the CDC guidelines.

[SKL]

2 minutes ago, kokotg said:

The VERY FIRST RESPONSE (which is what this side conversation was about) literally says that if she had kids that age she would let them go without masks now. Then like 2 other people say something similar very early on. I was responding to a couple of very specific comments. That's why I quoted them. I'm not talking about "most of the responses." There's a specific sub-conversation going on where someone asked if they'd missed that people on this board had said they (as unvaccinated people) would stop masking because of the CDC guidelines.

And I'm saying they may have meant that they were going to let their children go maskless because that was the plan anyway, for other reasons.  Like they only ever go to places like the playground where masks are not required, or they live in a place where the mask mandate (if it ever existed) has already been lifted.

I personally think it's uncharitable to assume people have vowed to cheat (or encouraged others to cheat) when they could have meant something else.

[Penelope]

50 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

No, I just divided the numbers on the CDC site...

What are the actual numbers for Brazil, then? We can divide ourselves.

I have no idea how to find that, and I suspect some knowledge of Portuguese would be needed. But fact-checking the numbers still wouldn’t say anything to me about the P1 variant. A difference in proportion could be something as simple as that they are very good about counting Covid child deaths, which are probably less likely to be undercounted anywhere as they are more rare, but are undercounting adult Covid deaths, because the country was on fire with Covid. 
 

It’s too simple to say variant more virulent for children, especially when there is other evidence to the contrary. You also cannot compare two countries directly that are so different.

I found a study on pediatric Covid and MIS-C in 5 Latin American countries that was mentioned in a related March NYT article about kids dying in Brazil. And this was published in January, so cases occurred long before the February surge of P1 in Brazil.

It appears that they hardly tested anyone at all in those countries, (and this series was from major institutions!), because almost HALF of the 409 (can’t even fathom this low number, from over 14 different hospitals in 5 countries) of PCR positives were hospitalized, and 23% of them had MIS-C. Yet they comment some of their colleagues in some countries were too overwhelmed to get data submitted in time, and they say that didn’t even collect a lot of the lab data on these kids that would have been done on pediatric cases in other countries. 🙁 They attribute poor outcomes to socioeconomic factors, but again wonder about genetic differences since the Hispanic population is very much over-represented in MIS-C cases in the US.

https://journals.lww.com/pidj/Fulltext/2021/01000/COVID_19_and_Multisystem_Inflammatory_Syndrome_in.1.aspx

The suffering of those in less advantaged countries compared to what we have available to us is almost unfathomable.

 

Edited May 18, 2021 by Penelope

[kokotg]

 

 

6 minutes ago, SKL said:

And I'm saying they may have meant that they were going to let their children go maskless because that was the plan anyway, for other reasons.  Like they only ever go to places like the playground where masks are not required, or they live in a place where the mask mandate (if it ever existed) has already been lifted.

I personally think it's uncharitable to assume people have vowed to cheat (or encouraged others to cheat) when they could have meant something else.

If someone starts a thread asking how people will respond to the CDC announcement and three people immediately say, "I'll stop having my unvaccinated children wear masks" I think it's pretty safe to assume that they were actually answering the question about how they'll respond to the CDC announcement. If they're not, it's really on them to say that. The CDC announcement did not change masking guidelines for children.

Edited May 18, 2021 by kokotg

[SKL]

2 minutes ago, kokotg said:

If someone starts a thread asking how people will respond to the CDC announcement and three people immediately say, "I'll stop having my unvaccinated children wear masks" I think it's pretty safe to assume that they were actually answering the question about how they'll respond to the CDC announcement. If they're not, it's really on them to say that. The CDC announcement did not change masking guidelines for children.

Well FTR the first respondent said she doesn't even have children that young, so you're reading a lot into her answer.

[kokotg]

1 minute ago, SKL said:

Well FTR the first respondent said she doesn't even have children that young, so you're reading a lot into her answer.

I'm reading exactly what she said, which is that if she had kids that age she would stop having them wear masks as a result of the CDC announcement.

[Not_a_Number]

9 minutes ago, Penelope said:

A difference in proportion could be something as simple as that they are very good about counting Covid child deaths, which are probably less likely to be undercounted anywhere as they are more rare, but are undercounting adult Covid deaths, because the country was on fire with Covid. 

It could. Assuming the calculation is correct, you think they might be undercounting adult deaths by a factor of 10? That's a staggering number. 

[SKL]

2 minutes ago, kokotg said:

I'm reading exactly what she said, which is that if she had kids that age she would stop having them wear masks as a result of the CDC announcement.

No, she said she would let them go maskless.  No comment as to whether that was against the rules or prior practice in her area.  The question was, as I and others interpreted it, would this change make you more careful, not would this change make you cheat.

[kokotg]

2 minutes ago, SKL said:

No, she said she would let them go maskless.  No comment as to whether that was against the rules or prior practice in her area.  The question was, as I and others interpreted it, would this change make you more careful, not would this change make you cheat.

I think that your interpretation requires a lot of mental gymnastics. Clearly you disagree. That's fine. Unless those early responders want to come back and clarify, we're not going to get anywhere, and I suspect they've moved on. ETA: your interpretation of the responses, not the original question...which I think that, in fact, some of the early responders misinterpreted.

Edited May 18, 2021 by kokotg

[2ndGenHomeschooler]

17 minutes ago, kokotg said:

 

 

If someone starts a thread asking how people will respond to the CDC announcement and three people immediately say, "I'll stop having my unvaccinated children wear masks" I think it's pretty safe to assume that they were actually answering the question about how they'll respond to the CDC announcement. If they're not, it's really on them to say that. The CDC announcement did not change masking guidelines for children.

MAYBE the people who responded saying that they would no longer require their under 12s to mask come from states that already don’t have a mask mandate for anyone regardless of vaccination status (there are quite a few from my understanding). Perhaps they had decided as a family to mask anyway, per CDC guidelines, regardless of what their state was or was not mandating. But now that the CDC guidelines have changed again, and a large majority in their state will no longer be masking, maybe they’ve just decided to let their unvaccinated children go maskless as well. No longer following CDC guidance, but also not breaking any of their state’s rules. 
 

I don’t live in a state without a mask mandate so none of this applies to me, just thinking we could give people the benefit of the doubt rather than assuming they plan to lie. 

Edited May 18, 2021 by 2ndGenHomeschooler

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, 2ndGenHomeschooler said:

MAYBE the people who responded saying that they would no longer require their under 12s to mask come from states that already don’t have a mask mandate (there are quite a few from my understanding). Perhaps they had decided as a family to mask anyway, per CDC guidelines, regardless of what their state was or was not mandating. But now that the CDC guidelines have changed again, and a large majority in their state will no longer be masking, maybe they’ve just decided to let their unvaccinated children go maskless as well. No longer following CDC guidance, but also not breaking any of their state’s rules. 
 

I don’t live in a state without a mask mandate so none of this applies to me, just thinking we could give people the benefit of the doubt rather than assuming they plan to lie. 

I guess they aren't lying, per se, they are just not following CDC guidelines. But you're right that there's no reason to assume people are, and lots of us don't follow them in many other parts of our lives. (I like my eggs over easy, for example 😛 . ) 

[Spy Car]

2 hours ago, pinball said:

you need to dial back the hostility.

 

More of the same. 

Bill

[2ndGenHomeschooler]

9 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

I guess they aren't lying, per se, they are just not following CDC guidelines. But you're right that there's no reason to assume people are, and lots of us don't follow them in many other parts of our lives. (I like my eggs over easy, for example 😛 . ) 

And I have no intention of giving up raw cookie dough! Ha! 

[Not_a_Number]

I've now done a ton of Googling about Brazil deaths, both in English and in Portuguese, and I'm not finding anything under 0.4 to 0.5% of the deaths being in younger people. Here's a site: 

https://www.poder360.com.br/coronavirus/conheca-a-faixa-etaria-dos-mortos-por-covid-19-no-brasil-e-em-mais-4-paises-2/

The groupings go up to 19, so it's a bit different, so I suppose we could round it down and say it's 0.3%. 

Here's the data in the US: 

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm

There have been 287 deaths in the 17 and under crowd and about 568,000 deaths overall. That's a ratio of 0.05%. It is not in any way comparable to the number I'm getting for Brazil. It's not close. 

To get to 0.5% deaths in the US, you need to go up to age 30. 

I'd like to hear hypotheses for what's happening here. Because it's at the very least alarming and not worth blowing off. 

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, 2ndGenHomeschooler said:

And I have no intention of giving up raw cookie dough! Ha! 

Meeeee neither! 

(I've paid for the over easy eggs once, by the way. It was gross. Didn't stop me for long, though.) 

[kokotg]

8 minutes ago, 2ndGenHomeschooler said:

And I have no intention of giving up raw cookie dough! Ha! 

I have, however, started wearing a mask while eating raw cookie dough

 

j/k

[Not_a_Number]

2 minutes ago, kokotg said:

I have, however, started wearing a mask while eating raw cookie dough

 

j/k

Now I want some cookie dough... 

[Danae]

With a sous vide set-up it's really easy to pasteurize your eggs.  Then you can have raw cookie dough and homemade mayo and egg white foam on your drinks and undercooked breakfast eggs with no worries.

 

[Penelope]

25 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

I've now done a ton of Googling about Brazil deaths, both in English and in Portuguese, and I'm not finding anything under 0.4 to 0.5% of the deaths being in younger people. Here's a site: 

https://www.poder360.com.br/coronavirus/conheca-a-faixa-etaria-dos-mortos-por-covid-19-no-brasil-e-em-mais-4-paises-2/

The groupings go up to 19, so it's a bit different, so I suppose we could round it down and say it's 0.3%. 

Here's the data in the US: 

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm

There have been 287 deaths in the 17 and under crowd and about 568,000 deaths overall. That's a ratio of 0.05%. It is not in any way comparable to the number I'm getting for Brazil. It's not close. 

To get to 0.5% deaths in the US, you need to go up to age 30. 

I'd like to hear hypotheses for what's happening here. Because it's at the very least alarming and not worth blowing off. 

It is alarming. I thought I saw 340 US deaths? Wouldn’t change things significantly, can look later... wonder if MIS-C deaths are counted as Covid deaths.

Are people blowing it off? 

What are the death rates for Covid in Brazil vs. other Latin American countries vs. other nations with similarly high poverty levels, with and without variants? What is child mortality for influenza or other respiratory diseases in these countries as compared to US or Europe? What is the level of access to hospital care for children in Brazil? Some questions that come immediately to mind, but so many others.

Edited May 18, 2021 by Penelope

[Spryte]

6 minutes ago, Danae said:

With a sous vide set-up it's really easy to pasteurize your eggs.  Then you can have raw cookie dough and homemade mayo and egg white foam on your drinks and undercooked breakfast eggs with no worries.

 

We need a spin off thread on this.  I need to learn how to do this!

[Not_a_Number]

4 minutes ago, Penelope said:

It is alarming. I thought I saw 340 US deaths? Wouldn’t change things significantly, can look later... wonder if MIS-C deaths are counted as Covid deaths.

Are people blowing it off? 

What are the death rates for Covid in Brazil vs. other Latin American countries vs. other nations with similarly high poverty levels, with and without variants? What is child mortality for influenza or other respiratory diseases in these countries as compared to US or Europe? What is the level of access to hospital care for children in Brazil? Some questions that come immediately to mind, but so many others.

Those questions either don’t have answers we can reasonably expect to find or don’t seem terribly relevant.

Assuming that proportionately 10 times as many of the recorded deaths in Brazil are of kids, what’s your theory about what’s going on?

[Penelope]

1 minute ago, Not_a_Number said:

Those questions either don’t have answers we can reasonably expect to find or don’t seem terribly relevant.

Assuming that proportionately 10 times as many of the recorded deaths in Brazil are of kids, what’s your theory about what’s going on?

Ah, come on, do I need one? 😂 I can’t personally do a study. I threw out some random thoughts. Im not sure if you really want to discuss other ideas, or are you just trying to say I’m wrong? Seriously asking, I’m interested. 

It seems like the onus is on the person who says “it must be the variant” to show some evidence that would support this. Comparing mortality between two countries isn’t it. 
 

I have linked two studies that suggest this hypothesis about P1 isn’t true, and another study that shows that testing was very poor, level of care subpar compared to the US, and that child mortality was higher than in the US or Europe in Latin American countries long before P1 was on the scene. 

 

[Not_a_Number]

1 minute ago, Penelope said:

Ah, come on, do I need one? 😂 I can’t personally do a study. I threw out some random thoughts. Im not sure if you really want to discuss other ideas, or are you just trying to say I’m wrong? Seriously asking, I’m interested. 

I think the way one generally does this stuff is to propose a variety of explanations and then test them in turn. That's certainly how I personally explore things. 

Let me take a look at your earlier studies, one sec -- I think I missed them. 

[Dmmetler]

Well, I got the e-mail this morning. Mask requirements and distancing requirements have been lifted for city buildings. So, I can set my own requirements for my classes and state that masks will be worn by me and my too young to be vaccinated students, but will have little to no support if a student refuses. I'll continue to keep a box of child sized masks in the room, and I plan to mask in lessons until the kids can all be vaccinated for purposes of modeling, but I'm guessing that is all I can do. 

[Not_a_Number]

Ugh. I'm having trouble finding good enough Brazilian data. 

I do think it's a plausible theory that due to not having care, Brazilian kids are doing much worse. That's actually what I was saying before. The reason that theory alarms me is that it means quite a lot of kids are getting sick enough that they NEED serious hospital care. So that means that if we just let kids recover from COVID themselves, like they do with a cold, we'd have a lot more kids die.

That's a more reassuring theory than the idea that P2 is more deadly for kids (although the paper you linked did suggest it was deadlier for everyone else, so I dunno how reassuring THAT is -- on the other hand, the numbers suck), but it's not really all THAT reassuring. 

Edited May 18, 2021 by Not_a_Number

[HeartString]

6 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

Ugh. I'm having trouble finding good enough Brazilian data. 

I do think it's a plausible theory that due to not having care, Brazilian kids are doing much worse. That's actually what I was saying before. The reason that theory alarms me is that it means quite a lot of kids are getting sick enough that they NEED serious hospital care. So that means that if we just let kids recover from COVID themselves, like they do with a cold, we'd have a lot more kids die.

That's a more reassuring theory than the idea that P2 is more deadly for kids (although the paper you linked did suggest it was deadlier for everyone else, so I dunno how reassuring THAT is -- on the other hand, the numbers suck), but it's not really all THAT reassuring. 

The largest part of the hospital overwhelm in Brazil is adults though isn’t?  So the kids that need hospital care are competing with adults for spots not necessarily other kids.  
 

How many kids have died in Brazil? 

[Matryoshka]

6 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

Ugh. I'm having trouble finding good enough Brazilian data. 

I do think it's a plausible theory that due to not having care, Brazilian kids are doing much worse. That's actually what I was saying before. The reason that theory alarms me is that it means quite a lot of kids are getting sick enough that they NEED serious hospital care. So that means that if we just let kids recover from COVID themselves, like they do with a cold, we'd have a lot more kids die.

That's a more reassuring theory than the idea that P2 is more deadly for kids (although the paper you linked did suggest it was deadlier for everyone else, so I dunno how reassuring THAT is -- on the other hand, the numbers suck), but it's not really all THAT reassuring. 

But if it's 10x more deadly in kids there, lack of access to healthcare can't be the only reason, as then we should see that it's at least 10x more deadly across the population.  If anything, I'd think they'd triage for younger patients if there's access problems - that's what's happened, as far as I know, in other places where there's been hospital overwhelm.  If you're really old, or have heart/lung problems, cancer, etc., there have been places where those people don't get the ventilator, or oxygen, or meds, in favor of younger people with generally a better chance of survival.

So... if this thing is X times more deadly for people across age ranges, I can buy that it's because the hospital systems are overwhelmed.  If it's just 10x more deadly for kids but only 2x or 5x more deadly for older people than it is elsewhere, I still think that's very noteworthy and tells us that this is hitting kids in particular harder than other strains.

[Not_a_Number]

3 minutes ago, HeartString said:

The largest part of the hospital overwhelm in Brazil is adults though isn’t?  So the kids that need hospital care are competing with adults for spots not necessarily other kids.  

Right. But the issue is that I don't think I'd want my kids sick enough to NEED a hospital badly. Maybe I underestimate how often that happens normally, I guess. 

 

3 minutes ago, HeartString said:

How many kids have died in Brazil? 

I was seeing something like 800, which is a lot. It's hard to find great pages for data, though. 

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, Matryoshka said:

So... if this thing is X times more deadly for people across age ranges, I can buy that it's because the hospital systems are overwhelmed.  If it's just 10x more deadly for kids but only 2x or 5x more deadly for older people than it is elsewhere, I still think that's very noteworthy and tells us that this is hitting kids in particular harder than other strains.

I'm having trouble finding any kind of good data, though. The study Penelope linked suggested it was becoming deadlier in OTHER groups and NOT in kids. But I can't find any kind of graph about when the child deaths have happened, so I can't tell what's happening there. If you find me that info, that would be super helpful. 

Realistically, I don't think we'll have good data on new variants until they show up in the US 😕 . 

[Faith-manor]

1 minute ago, Matryoshka said:

But if it's 10x more deadly in kids there, lack of access to healthcare can't be the only reason, as then we should see that it's at least 10x more deadly across the population.  If anything, I'd think they'd triage for younger patients if there's access problems - that's what's happened, as far as I know, in other places where there's been hospital overwhelm.  If you're really old, or have heart/lung problems, cancer, etc., there have been places where those people don't get the ventilator, or oxygen, or meds, in favor of younger people with generally a better chance of survival.

So... if this thing is X times more deadly for people across age ranges, I can buy that it's because the hospital systems are overwhelmed.  If it's just 10x more deadly for kids but only 2x or 5x more deadly for older people than it is elsewhere, I still think that's very noteworthy and tells us that this is hitting kids in particular harder than other strains.

Agreed. I do believe it is a data set that may folks want to wish away because it is most definitely what the public does not want to hear. We have been a nation only ball to ready to throw our younglings under the bus so the adults can have "normal", and there might be a piper to be paid for that. Unfortunately, the ones at the mercy of the grownups may end up paying that piper. I hope I am totally wrong! That would be a relief indeed.

[heartlikealion]

Currently if we go into a public place I have the kids wear masks. But at school dd's class didn't even have to wear them unless they were walking in the hallway and the majority of the school just chose not to in class (said they were social distancing. Like I believe they all remained 6 ft apart). 

Outdoors I don't worry as much. Dd didn't wear hers during an egg hunt. But if we went somewhere really crowded I would want it on. 

[Terabith]

1 hour ago, Not_a_Number said:

Now I want some cookie dough... 

I grew up absolutely paranoid of food poisoning.  I cannot do raw eggs.  However, Kroger had edible cookie dough that is delicious but does not contain raw eggs.  You're welcome.

[Penelope]

4 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

Ugh. I'm having trouble finding good enough Brazilian data. 

I do think it's a plausible theory that due to not having care, Brazilian kids are doing much worse. That's actually what I was saying before. The reason that theory alarms me is that it means quite a lot of kids are getting sick enough that they NEED serious hospital care. So that means that if we just let kids recover from COVID themselves, like they do with a cold, we'd have a lot more kids die.

That's a more reassuring theory than the idea that P2 is more deadly for kids (although the paper you linked did suggest it was deadlier for everyone else, so I dunno how reassuring THAT is -- on the other hand, the numbers suck), but it's not really all THAT reassuring. 

Not reassuring at all that it is more deadly in adults there, but I don’t think we are going to have that level of hospital overwhelm anymore in the US, at least not in the near future. I have concerns about it regionally when flu comes back in the fall.

But I thought it was the idea that P1 was particularly worse for kids there that was the primary concern, since the youngest kids still cannot be vaccinated. P1 (possibly) being worse overall, but not in children, doesn’t explain the 0.5% of total deaths. (I know you know this, but in case it helps anyone who is following this).

I think some undercounting of adults is a possibility. I also think age distribution of the population could change these numbers, and Brazil has a younger median age than the US. 

I still think that some of the things I said below might be relevant. (Edited- ugh, the content of the quote disappeared. It was the comment about the numbers in other countries). 
Data from UNICEF says that worldwide, pediatric Covid deaths are at 0.3% of the deaths, suggesting that there might be other countries with a percentage similar to Brazil’s. I think they have more data by country, but the site is glitchy on my tablet. Data.unicef.org

Of course most countries are not sequencing all that much. Most of the variants are more recent, but pandemic mortality has changed with better treatment in some countries, too, so it’s not something to analyze by message board. ☺️

 

 

4 hours ago, Penelope said:

 

3 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

I'm having trouble finding any kind of good data, though. The study Penelope linked suggested it was becoming deadlier in OTHER groups and NOT in kids. But I can't find any kind of graph about when the child deaths have happened, so I can't tell what's happening there. If you find me that info, that would be super helpful. 

Realistically, I don't think we'll have good data on new variants until they show up in the US 😕 . 

Canada had a substantial outbreak, but I don’t know if there were enough cases to tell. 
 

And yes, the numbers in the news stories about Brazil do not show whether there is a difference in the numbers after the variant appeared.

Edited May 18, 2021 by Penelope

[SKL]

4 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

Ugh. I'm having trouble finding good enough Brazilian data. 

I do think it's a plausible theory that due to not having care, Brazilian kids are doing much worse. That's actually what I was saying before. The reason that theory alarms me is that it means quite a lot of kids are getting sick enough that they NEED serious hospital care. So that means that if we just let kids recover from COVID themselves, like they do with a cold, we'd have a lot more kids die.

That's a more reassuring theory than the idea that P2 is more deadly for kids (although the paper you linked did suggest it was deadlier for everyone else, so I dunno how reassuring THAT is -- on the other hand, the numbers suck), but it's not really all THAT reassuring. 

Again - are we sure Covid is the princpal reason for their deaths?  When cases are high in the population, a lot of people, including kids, will die "with" Covid but not "from" Covid.

It's also possible that Covid, or this variant, impacts that biological population more than ours.  Though Brazil is a diverse country with a lot of mixed people, there are still large populations of poor indigenous people.  Indigenous people even in the USA tend to be hit harder by Covid.

There are other possible reasons - are they actually basing their counts on reliable Covid tests, or just presuming Covid?  Could there be another bug running rampant, or even just the extreme results of Covid-aggravated poverty and parental illness/absence?

I don't have an answer, but most likely there is a combination of reasons that the child death numbers are higher.

[Not_a_Number]

3 minutes ago, Penelope said:

But I thought it was the idea that P1 was particularly worse for kids there that was the primary concern, since the youngest kids still cannot be vaccinated. P1 (possibly) being worse overall, but not in children, doesn’t explain the 0.5% of total deaths. (I know you know this, but in case it helps anyone who is following this).

No, that'd do the opposite of explaining it! That's why I'd love to see when exactly the child deaths happened. If it was before P1, then obviously P1 has nothing to do with it. 

I think there are two possibility I worry about when I look at that statistic: 

1) One of the new variants (like P1) is much harder on kids

and 

2) Actually, P1 isn't that bad, but the issue is that lots of kids in the US are getting very sick, they are just not dying because they are getting hospital care. 

I guess I already knew that the chance of hospitalization for kids isn't nearly as small as is the chance of death, but the fact that fully 10 times as many kids (or maybe 5 times as many, assuming we're undercounting adult deaths) have died in places with lower levels of care really brings it home to me. That means that kids are getting sick enough to really NEED hospital care 😕 . That makes me worry. Not as much as the idea that P1 is deadlier for kids, but it still isn't that comforting. 

[Not_a_Number]

4 minutes ago, SKL said:

Again - are we sure Covid is the princpal reason for their deaths?  When cases are high in the population, a lot of people, including kids, will die "with" Covid but not "from" Covid.

... yeah, no. 

[mathnerd]

8 minutes ago, SKL said:

the extreme results of Covid-aggravated poverty and parental illness/absence?

I have been hearing about this anecdotally from India as well. This could be a major problem in all the third world countries in the coming months due to lack of vaccines and crowded living conditions.

Edited May 18, 2021 by mathnerd

[SKL]

This article says that in the US, when adjusted for age distribution, indigenous people are 3.3x as likely to die of Covid compared to white people.  Given that the median age in Brazil is younger than that in the US, this alone could account for a significantly higher death toll among Brazilian kids.  Then you consider the fact that even in non-Pandemic times, the Brazilian child death rate is about 2x that of the US.

https://www.apmresearchlab.org/covid/deaths-by-race

 

Edited May 18, 2021 by SKL

[SKL]

13 minutes ago, mathnerd said:

I have been hearing about this anecdotally from India as well. This could be a major problem in all the third world countries in the coming months due to lack of vaccines and crowded living conditions.

I remember a story early in the pandemic where a dad in Wuhan was locked up in the hospital with Covid, and nobody would go to his house to care for his special needs son, who eventually died of neglect.  It makes you wonder what's happening with children whose caregivers, often grandparents, disappear from the scene because of Covid.