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The Justification for Forced Vaccination of Children
Who knew that the reason children should be forced to get the COVID vaccine is because of “bug-nut crazy right wingers, who are a bunch of idiots.” That is what I was told when I replied to a Tweet about pending vaccine approval for 5-11 year olds. After I fully agreed with said Tweet stating that parents should be allowed to choose whether their children get the COVID vaccine, I was called a dumbass that had to do mental gymnastics to come to my conclusion. At first, I tried to politely point out that we shouldn’t force children, who are at significantly lower risk of getting COVID, much less a serious case of it, to get vaccinated to protect adults who choose not to. I was quickly told, yes they do, then insulted (see above). Finally, the “bug-nut crazy right winger” argument was made (no mental gymnastics there!) to justify the mandate. Yep, children should be forced to get COVID vaccines because crazy right wingers won’t.
For what it’s worth, the person I was arguing with cited an article supporting her claim that children are efficient spreaders, and I read both the article in Forbes and the paper the article reported on. Unfortunately for my debate opponent (and even more unfortunate for me, because Twitter is not a forum conducive to a full analysis of the report) the report does not make her case.
The article studied 224 children who got COVID at camp and their household contacts. 12% (46) of the household contacts who chose to get tested had positive tests and 10% of them (4) were hospitalized. The problem is, the study cites the number of children infected by age, but not the number of secondary infections by age. In other words, it is not known whether the household members who subsequently tested positive were infected by 5-year-olds, 19-year-olds, and anywhere in between. Hence, the study does not distinguish between infection rate by age group.
Furthermore, the study makes no reference to the fact that the infections by age were not constant – there were more older children infected than younger children. It is well understood that older children – teenagers – get COVID at higher rates than younger children. After all, many of them are physically close to being adults. A different study that tried to measure transmission by age group said that children 0-3 may actually be higher transmitters, but that can possibly be at least partly attributed to the fact that protective measures by caregivers is more difficult with a baby/toddler than with an older child.
In any case, all these studies do is make it more reasonable, not less, that parents need to consider their own children and their own household situation and make their own decision about whether to get their children vaccinated. All these studies show that younger children are less likely to get COVID in the first place. Not only does this mean less risk to our children, it also means less risk to the adults around them. People who want to force vaccines on children because crazy right wingers won’t get vaccinated are merely the other side of the same coin.
Published in General
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A guy on Deep State Twitter today said that we tried the carrots and now it’s time for hammers to the kneecaps. There’s your authoritarian member of the administrative state not afraid to post that view on a government system.
Seriously. And they say conservatives are the authoritarians!
This is not about science–it is about Marxism. Marx wanted to divide people into workers vs. owners. That doesn’t work in America, since every worker wants to be owner and most owners are honest earners. Under Obama, the Marxists tried to divide American into competing racial groups. That was partly effective, but Americans are the least racists people on the planet. Now, the Marxists are using arbitrary health measures to divide America. “Pandemic of the unvaccinated” all the mandates on children design to pit one group of people (the fearful) against the others. Good people need to recognize what is the Marxists are trying to do and call it out. Don’t fight about studies or data, it is not possible to change the mind of someone determined to believe a narrative. Instead, red-pill them on the Marxism.
Yep. I badly want to respond but it’s supposed to be for work only and it’s attached to your real name. Those with rightthink aren’t afraid to post their thoughts. It would be good for conservative reporters to do FOIA requests for discussions on January 6, vaccine mandates, etc. “Our betters” really want to squash the opposition.
One thing I found interesting in the twitter battle was the more I tried to keep it focused on the topic- should children be forced to get vaccinated to protect unvaccinated adults – the more she brought up politics. I enjoy bringing up the data because it keeps me from going down their rabbit hole and arguing politics, and their lack of rational arguments exposes that their opinions are based on emotion and hatred of the other side.
That is interesting. I’ll now keep an eye out for instances of that phenomenon.
Why don’t people recognize that the more they try to force something on me, the more suspicious I become about the thing?
They don’t understand human nature, do they?
I’ve seen Twitter discussions where a guy is trying to explain this. He’ll tell them he’s on their side on the need for shots but he’s not for mandates. Then he’ll explain why they are getting pushback and the response is that the shot refusers are stupid, selfish people and must be forced to comply for the common good.
Weird. We’ve been “forcing” vaccinations on kids for more then 50 years. I’m 65 and could not attend school until I got all my vaccinations. Suddenly it’s a deep state plot.
That phenomenon is widely recognized AND talked about, both on our side and among the elite ruling class. However, government is gonna do what government does.
Don, this ain’t easy. Please provide a sample text.
And how long had the vaccines been on the market and used before they were forced on kids and others? A lot longer than the 6 months the current Covid vaccines have been out after rushed development. Prior vaccines had built up extensive public confidence. The harder the authorities push the current experimental vaccines, the more public confidence is undermined.
Hmmm…is this intentionally obtuse? I’ve enjoyed so many of @kozak posts over the years as you have shared your profession and experiences, but this tack seems rather snarky. I would hope you might provide clarity instead of derision.
I too have been fully vaccinated from childhood (forced) and including Moderna COVID-19 (choice). As I understand the functionality, the majority of COVID-19 ‘vaccines’ are simply not vaccines as we commonly accept the definition. From the Mayo Clinic: “The Moderna COVID-19 vaccine is 94% effective in preventing the COVID-19 virus with symptoms” (my emphasis added).
They are still miracle drugs to drastically reduce these symptoms. For certain demographics these symptoms have proven substantially lethal and for those the ‘vaccine’ needs prioritizing. But the messaging has been terrible (politics??). Pfizer and Moderna are symptom reduction medications with some viral prophylaxis. None seemingly hold a candle to recovered, acquired immunity.
In the face of many historical respiratory viral threats in my lifetime, we’ve never before been forced to universally mask, employ social isolation policies or mandate a viral shot that does not kill said virus. None of these are accepted standard pandemic protocols (CDC, WHO, NIH, etc.) – why the sudden change? Is it so hard to acknowledge the current skepticism arises not from ignorance but a reaction to the administrative state responding with such extraordinary indifference to precedent?
The difference is those vaccines are to protect children from serious disease. Children have gotten COVID at significantly lower rates and severity than adults. We’re asking parents to vaccinate their children to protect high risk people who are able to get vaccinated themselves. We’re not arguing against vaccines, just arguing for parental choice.
Here is an example of people talking about that phenomenon, at 18:00 and elsewhere in this long (but good) interview. People do recognize that forcing people to do things has these and other bad consequences.
Edit to add: Somewhere in that interview Prasad speculates on the reasons why Biden doesn’t seem to recognize the phenomenon. (Spoiler alert: They aren’t particularly good reasons.)
If you don’t think Covid can be as serious as measles , or mumps or chickenpox you are poorly informed. In addition, every time a child in a classroom gets covid, all the other children either have to quarantine at home or get retested, I’ve seen kids over and over and over for this. Missing class time multiple times.
That’s a policy issue, not a health issue.
I didn’t say it can’t, it can, but it’s at a significantly lower rate than for adults. I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but even at its current peak levels, hospitalization rates for children are very low, less than .5 per 100K.
As for quarantining children exposed in school, first, I’m not saying children shouldn’t be vaccinated, I’m saying it should be a parent’s choice. I had my son vaccinated precisely to have to keep him from having to miss school if he was exposed. In any case, rules are changing. For example, data shows that quarantined students have very low COVID rates, and in fact, LA County no longer requires unvaccinated students to quarantine if both students (COVID positive and close contact) were masked.
Forced vaccination for kids? I know a guy who would take a stab at it.
OJ Simpson?
LOL; SMH
The ginsu knife collector otherwise known as Mr. Nicole Brown
I’ll take Who is the most published doctor on COVID-19 early treatments in the world Alex.
I’ll take Who is the most published doctor on COVID-19 early treatments in the world Alex.
And one that’s changing. Here in LA County, as of yesterday, unvaccinated students exposed to COVID at school does not have to quarantine if both students were masked. The positive test rate among LAUSD students who quarantined after exposure was 0.2%, according to this article in Reason.
That’s lower than the false positive test rate.
How do you think that statement keeps the covid-19 vaccines from being vaccines? Seems like a non sequitur to me.
That link is from 2017, not this week. If I knew somebody really said that and meant it, I would like to use it against the left. However, not without a direct, verifiable quote I’m not going to do it, not after the media did what they did to Donald Trump.