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*** OFFICIAL *** COVID-19 CoronaVirus Thread. Fresh epidemic fears as child pneumonia cases surge in Europe after China outbreak. NOW in USA (14 Viewers)

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IvanKaramazov said:
Obviously H1 and H2 are not mutually exclusive.  I suppose it's possible that there's some small "safety first" bias in these results, but it's extremely hard to believe that that's really what's driving that outcome.  It's way more likely that reason why they found so little covid in their pediatric sample is because pediatric covid has been a relatively uncommon thing all this time, which we've known for quite a while.
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More recently, hasn't pediatric COVID been much more of a thing?

One other possible "safety first" factor that could confound your H1 and H2...  In the children trials, the type of parents who signed their children up far more likely to be vaccinated themselves, such that both the test group and control group were surrounded by vaxxed people who are less likely to spread COVID (i.e. both groups were less likely to be exposed than the adult trials).  In the adult trials, neither group was surrounded by vaxxed people (i.e. both groups were more likely to be exposed than the child trials).

 
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culdeus said:
fatness said:
The answer's right in the link.

All the other Baltimore-area school districts had mask mandates.
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That's good info, your original post didn't have the link or any other information. 
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First school closure.

https://www.baltimoresun.com/maryland/carroll/education/cc-northwest-middle-virtual-20210920-d5ro7n3jbjgqfpc5mtgjipvrvu-story.html

I'm not sure their proposed 2-day closure is long enough to do anything effective but we will see.

I will say that I'm very angry at our school board refusing to require masks for that first week, for reasons that were only political. School board elections here are nonpartisan, and since I moved here in the early 70's have always remained that way. That all changed when COVID hit in spring 2020. School board discussions of masking and social distancing got derailed by board members talking instead about COVID spreading at (non-local) BLM protests, and the politicization has only gotten worse since then with 4 out of the 5 voting members routinely ignoring the advice of the County Health Officer and the non-voting student member of the board who's quite intelligent and more focused on education and school safety. The only reason they've complied with the state mandate that required masks a week later is because they'd risk losing state funding.  Concern for student safety is out the window for 4 of them. 

 
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Those under 18 accounted for 28.9% of reported Covid cases in the first week of September, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, more than their 22.2% share of the population and much more than their 15.5% share of cumulative cases since the beginning of the pandemic.

Happily, though, children still seem to be accounting for a tiny share of Covid deaths:
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https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-09-19/the-delta-wave-is-tough-on-kids-but-deadly-for-the-middle-aged

 
Rich Conway said:
More recently, hasn't pediatric COVID been much more of a thing?
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I haven't followed this particular item super-closely, aside from noticing that the reporting on this topic is abysmal.  It seems like most news stories that address pediatric cases talk a lot about the share of cases involving kids, but that metric doesn't tell you anything interesting since everybody else can or has been vaccinated.  What we need to know is not what percentage of positive cases involve kids but what percentage of kids turn up as positive cases.  I'm sure there are data out there on that point, but I haven't personally seen anything on it. 

 
fatness said:
Those under 18 accounted for 28.9% of reported Covid cases in the first week of September, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, more than their 22.2% share of the population and much more than their 15.5% share of cumulative cases since the beginning of the pandemic.
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What about hospitalization numbers?

With schools being open and so many kids getting quarantined and so many tests being done at some schools we should see an increase in case counts. 

Do we know the number of tests performed? 

If hospitalization numbers stayed relatively similar and testing went up as well as case counts, then not much would have changed. 

 
Since March 2020, approximately one in four hospitalized children and adolescents with COVID-19 has required intensive care, although the proportions with indicators of severe disease during the period when the Delta variant predominated were generally similar compared with those earlier in the pandemic. The observed indicators of severe COVID-19 among children and adolescents, as well as the potential for serious longer-term sequelae (e.g., multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children) documented elsewhere (5,6), underscore the importance of implementing multipronged preventive measures to reduce severe COVID-19 disease, including nonpharmaceutical interventions and vaccination among eligible age groups.
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Among adolescents aged 12–17 years, the only pediatric age group for whom a COVID-19 vaccine is currently approved, hospitalization rates were approximately 10 times higher in unvaccinated compared with fully vaccinated adolescents, indicating that vaccines were highly effective at preventing serious COVID-19 illness in this age group during a period when the Delta variant predominated.
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https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7036e2.htm

 
IvanKaramazov said:
I haven't followed this particular item super-closely, aside from noticing that the reporting on this topic is abysmal.  It seems like most news stories that address pediatric cases talk a lot about the share of cases involving kids, but that metric doesn't tell you anything interesting since everybody else can or has been vaccinated.  What we need to know is not what percentage of positive cases involve kids but what percentage of kids turn up as positive cases.  I'm sure there are data out there on that point, but I haven't personally seen anything on it. 
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Our local testing has been about 10% positivity on a weekly basis on tests being run. Keep in mind, a lot of those tests are being done just because it's needed prior to being admitted to the hospital and not necessarily due to symptoms.

But, that's still a significant number. 

 
Leeroy Jenkins said:
what
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fatness said:
Since the beginning of August, COVID rates per 100,000 are higher in the South than anywhere in the country except Alaska.

scroll down for "Cases by Region" graph
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The south is an interesting data point because it was getting hit by delta before schools reopened.  About six weeks or so ago, lots of us were wondering whether putting kids back in schools would make the situation worse.  That doesn't seem to have been the case.

 
IvanKaramazov said:
The south is an interesting data point because it was getting hit by delta before schools reopened.  About six weeks or so ago, lots of us were wondering whether putting kids back in schools would make the situation worse.  That doesn't seem to have been the case.
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School starts at the beginning of August.  It looked like daily cases were slowly rising beforehand, but then peaked at end of August/early September.  Hard to say if kids back in school drove the sharper increase in August. I think that is incomplete to argue one side or the other but it's probably not "important" in the total picture

 
IvanKaramazov said:
The south is an interesting data point because it was getting hit by delta before schools reopened.  About six weeks or so ago, lots of us were wondering whether putting kids back in schools would make the situation worse.  That doesn't seem to have been the case.
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Yea, but as pointing out up-thread, school in the south starts at the beginning of August and there certainly was an uptick in cases and adolescent/child cases at that time.

 
Leeroy Jenkins said:
Yea, but as pointing out up-thread, school in the south starts at the beginning of August and there certainly was an uptick in cases and adolescent/child cases at that time.
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Yeah, but there was already a very clear spike underway before schools opened.  You see it in the data, and we were talking about it at the time.  Looking at the chart, I don't see any obvious inflection points that line up with SCHOOL STARTED HERE or anything like that.  It's just a covid surge that started during the summer and seems to have played out like a bunch of other covid surges that we've seen before.  It's exactly the kind of pattern that you would have predicted if you thought that in-person schooling probably wasn't a big deal.

(I know there's also an argument out there that in-person schooling reduces covid transmission.  One could just as reasonably point to the chart as evidence in favor of that hypothesis -- after all, schools reopened and within about a month the region was on a downward trend.  I get that this is a plausible argument, but it just strikes me as pretty unlikely to be true.  I'd give it like maybe a 20% likelihood of being correct.  Much more likely is that schools just don't matter much.)  

 
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IvanKaramazov said:
I haven't followed this particular item super-closely, aside from noticing that the reporting on this topic is abysmal.  It seems like most news stories that address pediatric cases talk a lot about the share of cases involving kids, but that metric doesn't tell you anything interesting since everybody else can or has been vaccinated.  What we need to know is not what percentage of positive cases involve kids but what percentage of kids turn up as positive cases.  I'm sure there are data out there on that point, but I haven't personally seen anything on it. 
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It depends on where you are.  In our state we have multiple lawsuits to get this information.  There is a mass dump to the CDC that they provide that likely answers some of the simpler questions, but as to where hotspots in the state are, it's virtually impossible.  As of two weeks ago we were at a 20%+ positivity rate among children.  I believe we are now down to around the 15% rate.  I haven't been home to watch our local news this week so far and this info hasn't been published by the state for months.  Here in Central Florida they are trying to fill that gap at the county level by providing data to each other to make each other aware, but I can't speak to the rest of the state.  This sort of incompleteness is why we are just keeping our heads down and trying to make it to Feb 2022 when my youngest will be able to get the shot.  After that, I'll care a lot less.

 
IvanKaramazov said:
Yeah, but there was already a very clear spike underway before schools opened.  You see it in the data, and we were talking about it at the time.  Looking at the chart, I don't see any obvious inflection points that line up with SCHOOL STARTED HERE or anything like that.  It's just a covid surge that started during the summer and seems to have played out like a bunch of other covid surges that we've seen before.  It's exactly the kind of pattern that you would have predicted if you thought that in-person schooling probably wasn't a big deal.

(I know there's also an argument out there that in-person schooling reduces covid transmission.  One could just as reasonably point to the chart as evidence in favor of that hypothesis -- after all, schools reopened and within about a month the region was on a downward trend.  I get that this is a plausible argument, but it just strikes me as pretty unlikely to be true.  I'd give it like maybe a 20% likelihood of being correct.  Much more likely is that schools just don't matter much.)  
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I mean that comes from the flu, there are studies that look at how college towns deal with the flu that would indicate that it's the absence of kids that drive it.  In a lot of ways this makes complete sense.  Kids not in school will travel and have a wider available virus footprint.  

It would be hard to argue if there was no thanksgiving or christmas break that the flu would be worse somehow.  Covid should more or less follow this though the entire "remote school" stuff breaks those models a bit I suppose.

 
Surge in Louisiana began in mid July.  Schools opened August 10-20.  Cases in this surge peaked around August 4-8 with some variation by region.  Cases continue to fall.

There was no correlation or causation for the surge with school openings.  

There have been lots of cases reported from schools, but they did not cause the surge nor extend it.

Case numbers got wonky when Ida hit the large population centers, but there's no reason to think schools had an impact.  They might still, but not in this surge.

EDIT:

I spotted an interesting data point.  Cases in kids age 5-17 in Louisiana peaked around August 25. Some of that could have come from the opening of schools.

 
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The week before my daughter went back to school with 35,000 of her closest friends at USC in Colombia, SC the local hospitals reported that their child care ICU's were full with COVID cases. Think she went back August 17th. Delta was running around before school started here. My other daughter who teaches 3rd grade locally has been dealing with periodic quarantines because of kids testing positive since school started. The school system also shut down two schools for 14 days because of outbreaks.

Numbers might be going down but this isn't going away no matter what Culdeus says. 

 
Here's an interesting data point about covid infection rates among kids.  This is taken from the LA school system.  They're doing masks, social distancing, and (obviously) regular testing so these results may not generalize across the United States. 

While case rates increased among children in all age groups between mid-July and mid-August, over the last three weeks, cases declined in all children age groups by 40%. The current case rate for 12 to 17 year-olds is 132 new cases per 100,000 teens; for 5 to 11 year-olds the case rate is now 141 new cases per 100,000 children; and for children 0 to 4, the case rate is 88 per 100,000 children.

With most of the 1.5 million children in grades K-12 now having returned to in-person instruction, Public Health is encouraged that case rates have not increased. The decreases are similar to the decreases seen among adult residents and occurred as many schools reopened with testing, masking, infection control and outbreak management protocols in place.

With the heightened awareness of vaccine effectiveness, Public Health’s highest priority is to increase vaccination rates among those eligible teens unvaccinated. As of September 12, 63% of LA County teens 12 to 15 years old had received at least one dose of vaccine, and 53% were fully vaccinated. Among teens 16 to 17 years old, 70% had received at least one dose, and 61% were fully vaccinated.
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I think this is extremely interesting because of the way they report data for the various age groups.  The case rate for 5-11 year-olds (141/100K) is very similar to the case rate for 12-17 year-olds (132/100K) -- you can't tell from the information provided whether that difference is statistically significant or not, but that's not important.  What stands out is how small the difference is.  The kinda-mostly-vaccinated population has an infection rate that just barely exceeds the younger but completely unvaccinated cohort exposed to the exact same conditions.  And the youngest cohort has a case rate substantially lower than either.  

We know that vaccination is an absolute no-brainer decision for adults.  I'm starting to suspect that it's going to be a closer call for kids.  It's still early, but it would not surprise me at this point if vaccination ended up producing only minor gains in this particular population.  (I would still get my kids vaccinated if I had young kids.  It's just that it's not looking like a game-changer for them like it was for us.  Of course the good news is that unvaccinated kids are already safer than vaccinated adults, so it's not like this is a terrible outcome or anything in the aggregate). 

 
IvanKaramazov said:
it would not surprise me at this point if vaccination ended up producing only minor gains in this particular population.
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Would likely depend on how you define the endpoint.  Is it death, hospital admissions, positive cases in those kids?

Also all of those endpoints ignore one of the main reasons that we should vaccinate the kids... to reduce community transmission and the detrimental effects that has on the older and unvaccinated and the knock on effects on the health care system as a whole. 

 
The Z Machine said:
Would likely depend on how you define the endpoint.  Is it death, hospital admissions, positive cases in those kids?

Also all of those endpoints ignore one of the main reasons that we should vaccinate the kids... to reduce community transmission and the detrimental effects that has on the older and unvaccinated and the knock on effects on the health care system as a whole. 
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From the same article (it's kind of long so I didn't past the whole thing):

Close contacts that are not fully vaccinated, are subject to quarantine for up to 10 days after exposure to a case. Between August 15 and September 13, 15,655 student contacts and 1,056 staff contacts have been reported, with an additional 22,650 close contacts of unknown status reported, most of them suspected to be students. In total, nearly 2% of all staff and students countywide have been identified as a close contact of a case. Data to date indicates that very few of the identified close contacts have subsequently tested positive. As of last week, among the almost 30,000 people quarantined, 63 tested positive; this amounts to an overall secondary attack rate of 0.2%.
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Like I said, I would vaccinate my kids, but they don't seem to be a major source of transmission either.  (With the caveat of course that this particular school district has a bunch of mitigation measures in place.  It stands to reason that secondary transmission would be greater than 0.2% without those).

 
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IvanKaramazov said:
Here's an interesting data point about covid infection rates among kids.  This is taken from the LA school system.  They're doing masks, social distancing, and (obviously) regular testing so these results may not generalize across the United States. 

I think this is extremely interesting because of the way they report data for the various age groups.  The case rate for 5-11 year-olds (141/100K) is very similar to the case rate for 12-17 year-olds (132/100K) -- you can't tell from the information provided whether that difference is statistically significant or not, but that's not important.  What stands out is how small the difference is.  The kinda-mostly-vaccinated population has an infection rate that just barely exceeds the younger but completely unvaccinated cohort exposed to the exact same conditions.  And the youngest cohort has a case rate substantially lower than either.  

We know that vaccination is an absolute no-brainer decision for adults.  I'm starting to suspect that it's going to be a closer call for kids.  It's still early, but it would not surprise me at this point if vaccination ended up producing only minor gains in this particular population.  (I would still get my kids vaccinated if I had young kids.  It's just that it's not looking like a game-changer for them like it was for us.  Of course the good news is that unvaccinated kids are already safer than vaccinated adults, so it's not like this is a terrible outcome or anything in the aggregate). 
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What about children’s role in transmitting to vulnerable adults? FTR, that reasoning is used to support some other childhood vaccines.

ETA @The Z Machinebeat me to it.

 
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IvanKaramazov said:
Here's an interesting data point about covid infection rates among kids.  This is taken from the LA school system.  They're doing masks, social distancing, and (obviously) regular testing so these results may not generalize across the United States. 

I think this is extremely interesting because of the way they report data for the various age groups.  The case rate for 5-11 year-olds (141/100K) is very similar to the case rate for 12-17 year-olds (132/100K) -- you can't tell from the information provided whether that difference is statistically significant or not, but that's not important.  What stands out is how small the difference is.  The kinda-mostly-vaccinated population has an infection rate that just barely exceeds the younger but completely unvaccinated cohort exposed to the exact same conditions.  And the youngest cohort has a case rate substantially lower than either.  

We know that vaccination is an absolute no-brainer decision for adults.  I'm starting to suspect that it's going to be a closer call for kids.  It's still early, but it would not surprise me at this point if vaccination ended up producing only minor gains in this particular population.  (I would still get my kids vaccinated if I had young kids.  It's just that it's not looking like a game-changer for them like it was for us.  Of course the good news is that unvaccinated kids are already safer than vaccinated adults, so it's not like this is a terrible outcome or anything in the aggregate). 
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The better comparison is vaccinated vs unvaccinated in the same age group. Sure, it's low, but what if it would have otherwise been lower.

It also affects spread to others. It helps with eliminating masks eventually. Or decreased quarantine periods. 

 
gianmarco said:
The better comparison is vaccinated vs unvaccinated in the same age group. Sure, it's low, but what if it would have otherwise been lower.

It also affects spread to others. It helps with eliminating masks eventually. Or decreased quarantine periods. 
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I obviously agree with the first part.  It's not a perfect comparison, but like the Pfizer study, it's a data point that suggests we temper our expectations a little.  Parents are probably hoping that "getting my kids vaccinated" moves the needle kind in a way qualitatively similar to "getting myself vaccinated.". It's early and we'll get more data over time, but we may have been overestimating the urgency here.  (That definitely would include me.  I've been arguing for much faster approval).

The linked article addresses the second point.  Kids in this particular school system with these particular mitigation measures are not appreciably spreading covid.  The data here are actually pretty good since, as I understand it, they're including asymptomatic cases.

 
Actually, if you read the article, there's so little secondary transmission that they're relaxing their quarantine protocols a bit.  Again, this is very good news.

 
IvanKaramazov said:
Actually, if you read the article, there's so little secondary transmission that they're relaxing their quarantine protocols a bit.  Again, this is very good news.
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Nyc basically removed quarantine protocols based on cdc guidance. If kids are masked and 3 ft social distanced they do not need to quarantine if a kid in class test positive even if unvaxxed. 

 
Arkansas hospital is requiring employees who claim a religious exemption for the COVID-19 vaccine to also voluntarily opt out of 30 additional commonly-used medications developed with fetal cell lines

The majority of requests cited the use of fetal cell lines in the development of vaccines as part of the religious exemption. The practice uses cells grown in labs to test many new vaccines and drugs, including common antacids and cold medications.

“Thus, we provided a religious attestation form for those individuals requesting a religious exemption,” Troup said.

The hospital’s form includes a list of 30 common medications that used fetal cell lines during research and development. The list includes acetaminophen, albuterol, aspirin, ibuprofen, Tylenol, Pepto Bismol, Tums, Lipitor, Senokot, Motrin, Maalox, Ex-Lax, Benadryl, Sudafed, Preparation H, Claritin, Prilosec, and Zoloft.
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Epic bull#### call 🙇‍♂️

.

https://www.webmd.com/vaccines/covid-19-vaccine/news/20210918/some-medications-also-tied-to-religious-vaccine-exemption

 
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IvanKaramazov said:
I obviously agree with the first part.  It's not a perfect comparison, but like the Pfizer study, it's a data point that suggests we temper our expectations a little.  Parents are probably hoping that "getting my kids vaccinated" moves the needle kind in a way qualitatively similar to "getting myself vaccinated.". It's early and we'll get more data over time, but we may have been overestimating the urgency here.  (That definitely would include me.  I've been arguing for much faster approval).

The linked article addresses the second point.  Kids in this particular school system with these particular mitigation measures are not appreciably spreading covid.  The data here are actually pretty good since, as I understand it, they're including asymptomatic cases.
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For me, getting them vaccinated relieves a lot of stress of the unknown.  I will be more willing to "get back out there" like back in June and probably start planning on getting back to the office via public transportation.  For now though, I would rather not be a vector of infection for my two boys and wouldn't want to be the cause for their schools shutting down etc.  

 
Not to cause a firestorm, just a random thought.

If you can get religious exemptions for a vaccine, why cant you get a political exemption?   What's the actual difference?

 
ghostguy123 said:
Not to cause a firestorm, just a random thought.

If you can get religious exemptions for a vaccine, why cant you get a political exemption?   What's the actual difference?
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Political affiliation is not a protected class.  Political speech is protected, but that isn't the same thing.  And religious exemption isn't supposed to be carte blanche either.  

 
[icon] said:
Oh the irony: 

"13. Ivermectin / Stromectol"

:lol:  
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Hydroxychloroquine as well as Remdesivir on the list. Seems a complete strike out for the alt-medication crowd trying to go the religious exemption route.

10. Hydroxychloroquine / Plaquenil

11. Remdesivir / Veklury

12. Dapagliflozin / Farxiga / Ipragliflozin / Suglat / Enavogliflozin / Jardiance

13. Ivermectin / Stromectol

 
Leeroy Jenkins said:
Political affiliation is not a protected class.  Political speech is protected, but that isn't the same thing.  And religious exemption isn't supposed to be carte blanche either.  
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"Protected class".  Sure

But what's the difference?  It's all based on beliefs both for religion and political.

When does the religion of "the church of republicans" come?  Same for Democrats.

Shocked it hasn't happened yet.

Besides, from what I have seen where I work, people just lie for their religious exemptions.  Many are absolutely NOT of the religion they say they are.  They dont attend any church service ever, and just cite whichever religion gets them what they want.

 
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ghostguy123 said:
"Protected class".  Sure

But what's the difference?  It's all based on beliefs both for religion and political.

When does the religion of "the church of republicans" come?  Same for Democrats.

Shocked it hasn't happened yet.

Besides, from what I have seen where I work, people just lie for their religious exemptions.  Many are absolutely NOT of the religion they say they are.  They dont attend any church service ever, and just cite whichever religion gets them what they want.
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I doubt any of the religious exemptions require you to actually state whether you go to church, nor is that even part of the questions.  It probably wouldn't hold up to legal scrutiny to ask or consider such a thing.

 
ghostguy123 said:
"Protected class".  Sure

But what's the difference?  It's all based on beliefs both for religion and political.

When does the religion of "the church of republicans" come?  Same for Democrats.

Shocked it hasn't happened yet.

Besides, from what I have seen where I work, people just lie for their religious exemptions.  Many are absolutely NOT of the religion they say they are.  They dont attend any church service ever, and just cite whichever religion gets them what they want.
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Here's a NY Times article that talks about a lot of the issues you're raising:  Vaccine Resisters Seek Religious Exemptions. But What Counts as Religious?

Mr. Williams’s prepandemic research into school immunization requirements suggests that most objections described as religious to vaccines are really a matter of personal — and secular — beliefs. After the state of Vermont removed its vaccine exemption for nonreligious personal beliefs in 2016, the proportion of kindergarten students with a religious exemption shot up from 0.5 percent to 3.7 percent, suggesting that most parents who took advantage of religious exemptions did so only when others were not available.
Click to expand...

 
Leeroy Jenkins said:
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/09/22/1039272244/is-the-worst-over-modelers-predict-a-steady-decline-in-covid-cases-through-march

Under 10,000 cases per day by March.  Lots of caveats.  Concerned about Pennsylvania (WHY AND WTF!?!?!)
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They aren't the only ones forecasting a 4th wave in swing states.  The 4th wave maybe hyper localized where Pfizer/JJ was more heavily used over the superior Moderna and you got these people with waning immunity going into peak flu seaon in places where there is still green wood to burn.

 
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