America has now approved the Covid vaccine for children as young as six months old. Should you vaccinate your very young child? Yes, I believe that you should. I don’t think you absolutely have to do that. Children that young are at minimal risk from Covid. However, vaccination decreases the chance they spread the infection to others, including you, and there is some chance that there are long term effects from Covid, and this danger far exceed the trivial risk of any potential long term effects from the vaccine. Also, even if getting Covid isn’t that dangerous, it is still universally a stress ball and a
It looks at the phase III trial data for the mRNA vaccines and... well the serious adverse affects are quite significantly more likely than getting into the hospital with COVID. The harm/benefit numbers really favor not getting vaxxed if you are a healthy adult, which makes me think they would be even more overwhelming for kids.
Now, non-mRNA vaccines might not display that same pattern, so there's another layer of complexity there.
I'm more sanguine about the effective ban on nicotine-in-cigarettes given that I haven't read anything about a crackdown on nicotine gum or patches. At worst this means people who want nicotine and cigarettes together would just have to buy a patch or some gum to go with their cigarettes. As government paternalism goes, it's pretty soft; that makes me expect that a long-term black market is unlikely, for a similar reason that you don't see a black market for 4Loko (since people can just mix caffeine into alcohol themselves).
Based on https://www.gwern.net/Nicotine it sounds like nicotine increases the propensity to do whatever you happened to be doing when the nicotine entered your system. It's plausible-- to me, even likely-- that the public health benefits of having people consume their nicotine and cigarettes separately are substantial, if it ends up with some people finding that smoking no longer feels particularly rewarding.
"At most, [Doctors are] not telling any patients about it."
Anecdote to support your point. My wife tested positive a couple weeks ago. I went to urgent care to get tested. The doctor told me that (I paraphrase) "we all just do symptom management now" (where I understood "we" to mean "the medical profession" and not "we here at the clinic). She didn't even mention Paxlovid.
I wasn't too concerned, because (knock on wood) we're generally in good health. I didn't even remember that she didn't bring up Paxlovid until a couple days ago.
For what it's worth, we're doing fine. My wife had no symptoms, and I've taken two pcr tests, the most recent yesterday, and I'm negative. We're wondering if her result was a false positive.
God I love the irony in the Topol quote.
The article talked about here by el gato malo might make you change your mind about vaccines for kids: https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/first-a-trickle-then-a-flood-the
It looks at the phase III trial data for the mRNA vaccines and... well the serious adverse affects are quite significantly more likely than getting into the hospital with COVID. The harm/benefit numbers really favor not getting vaxxed if you are a healthy adult, which makes me think they would be even more overwhelming for kids.
Now, non-mRNA vaccines might not display that same pattern, so there's another layer of complexity there.
"We should show humility that we don't know its long term implications"
This seems like it could be an argument against vaccination as well?
Odd to be worried about the long-term unknown unknowns for a novel virus but not worried about long-term unknown unknowns for a novel vaccine.
ETA: in other words, the "there's so much we don't know" door swings both ways
I'm more sanguine about the effective ban on nicotine-in-cigarettes given that I haven't read anything about a crackdown on nicotine gum or patches. At worst this means people who want nicotine and cigarettes together would just have to buy a patch or some gum to go with their cigarettes. As government paternalism goes, it's pretty soft; that makes me expect that a long-term black market is unlikely, for a similar reason that you don't see a black market for 4Loko (since people can just mix caffeine into alcohol themselves).
Based on https://www.gwern.net/Nicotine it sounds like nicotine increases the propensity to do whatever you happened to be doing when the nicotine entered your system. It's plausible-- to me, even likely-- that the public health benefits of having people consume their nicotine and cigarettes separately are substantial, if it ends up with some people finding that smoking no longer feels particularly rewarding.
I have no defense of banning vaping.
"At most, [Doctors are] not telling any patients about it."
Anecdote to support your point. My wife tested positive a couple weeks ago. I went to urgent care to get tested. The doctor told me that (I paraphrase) "we all just do symptom management now" (where I understood "we" to mean "the medical profession" and not "we here at the clinic). She didn't even mention Paxlovid.
I wasn't too concerned, because (knock on wood) we're generally in good health. I didn't even remember that she didn't bring up Paxlovid until a couple days ago.
For what it's worth, we're doing fine. My wife had no symptoms, and I've taken two pcr tests, the most recent yesterday, and I'm negative. We're wondering if her result was a false positive.
I'm sad you haven't been able to stop making these posts already! :)
Thanks for making these posts!
And in the spirit of CDC delenda est, we have this:
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/06/25/1107416457/monkeypox-outbreak-in-us
Reminder about the 4th of July prior to your 6/30 predictions.
“It is being marketed as a way to remember a departed loved one. I… do not think that is going to be the use case.”
Probably not, but still a compelling application. As a fan I find the A.I. Norm Macdonald reads rather moving.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=U7jRBn7uAFw