New York Times journo: 'For those [children] without a serious medical condition, the danger of severe Covid is so low as to be difficult to quantify'

The NYT’s David Leonhardt has a new piece out today that found “an unvaccinated child is at less risk of serious Covid illness than a vaccinated 70-year-old”:

An unvaccinated child is at less risk of serious Covid illness than a vaccinated 70-year-old.

There is both good news and bad news in that comparison. https://t.co/D7eHsoefxJ

🧵

— David Leonhardt (@DLeonhardt) October 12, 2021

This is a welcome report, but long overdue as DeSantis spox Christina Pushaw notes here:

Sure took NYT a long time to state the obvious, but better late than never. Why is anyone still forced-masking kindergarteners?

Covid and Age: An unvaccinated child is at less risk of serious Covid illness than a vaccinated 70-year-old.https://t.co/eTN4GGnE1x

— Christina Pushaw (@ChristinaPushaw) October 12, 2021

As for how long we’ve known this, Leonhardt linked to this piece in The Atlantic that we also did a post on back in March. . .

In March, @ProfEmilyOster wrote an article that made some people angry —> https://t.co/8EE1RyGea3

— David Leonhardt (@DLeonhardt) October 12, 2021

. . .that argued it was safe to go ahead and plan summer vacations with unvaccinated children:

Kids are low risk. Go ahead and plan the summer.

My latest in Atlantic. https://t.co/DfBUcuM6u3

— ProfEmilyOster (@ProfEmilyOster) March 18, 2021

Oh well!

Subsequent data has largely vindicated her argument.

If anything, she could have gone even further in describing the age skew of Covid. Today, an accurate version of her headline might be: “Your Unvaccinated Kid Is Much Safer Than a Vaccinated Grandma.”

— David Leonhardt (@DLeonhardt) October 12, 2021

The more encouraging half of the story is kids.

For those without a serious medical condition, the danger of severe Covid is so low as to be difficult to quantify. For children with such a condition, the danger is higher but still lower than many people believe.

— David Leonhardt (@DLeonhardt) October 12, 2021

And if the Leonhardt thread wasn’t enough to cancel the panic once and for all, here’s Alasdair Munro, Clinical Research Fellow Paediatric of Infectious Diseases at the NIHR funded Clinical Research Facility based at University Hospital Southampton calling the Covid threat to children, “very ordinary”:

How worried should we be about #COVID19 in children?

Covid is a threat to children. But it’s not an extraordinary threat. In fact, it’s very ordinary.

In general, the risks from being infected are similar to the other respiratory viruses you probably don’t think much about

1/

— Alasdair Munro (@apsmunro) October 11, 2021

In fact, for smaller children (pre school) viruses like RSV are much more likely to result in hospitalisation and severe disease

We are heaving with RSV and other viruses in children’s ED, but despite record numbers of community cases are still seeing very little #COVID19

2/

— Alasdair Munro (@apsmunro) October 11, 2021

The children who are most likely to suffer from #COVID19 are those who suffer from other resp viruses, such as those with severe neurodisability or lung/heart disease

The risk is similar to that from other viruses, but can be significantly reduced by vaccination if available

3/

— Alasdair Munro (@apsmunro) October 11, 2021

We obviously don’t want to see children infected. At very high numbers, we will see some rare, serious events, which we want to avoid if we can

But we must be aware that there are other, bigger risks to children (mental health, school loss) which should be prioritised

4/

— Alasdair Munro (@apsmunro) October 11, 2021

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