Also, a bit of perspective: we vaccinate children for many illnesses that would result in comparatively "small" numbers of pediatric deaths (lower than Covid even!). The reason is that even rare pediatric deaths, if preventable, are terrible given the life-years lost. And there HAVE been FAR too many pediatric Covid deaths by our modern standards for pediatric infectious diseases. If Covid only affected kids, the absolute numbers of deaths would be a very worrisome thing. Second, the possibility of long-term complications from even non-fatal illnesses. For pediatric COVID, MIS-C and potential super antigen links to the recent spread of pediatric hepatitis are more than sufficient to meet that bar.
Finally - there was no safety signal seen in the 5-12 year old pediatric vaccines that have been given out to millions for ~year already, and no signal in the under 5 trials as well. The myocarditis risk primarily seems in teenage and older groups and linked to puberty/adolescent hormones.
There may be contrarian voices in the FDA and CDC as there will be in any large organization. But to believe their voices over the consensus requires a heavy dose of motivated reasoning and not engaging with some basic facts about the goals of pediatric vaccines and the ways vaccine trials work. There's a reason every pediatrician parent I know was first in line to get their kids vaccinated.
Let's see your numbers of <6 years and <8 etc.
> If Covid only affected kids
In all age groups, it affected children the least.
'In total, 540,305 people were tested for SARS-COV-2 and 129,704 (24.0%) were positive. In children aged <16 years, 35,200 tests were performed and 1408 (4.0%) were positive for SARS-CoV-2, compared to 19.1%–34.9% adults.' https://adc.bmj.com/content/105/12/1180
https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Provisional-COVID-19-Deaths-Focus-...
More kids have died in the same period from drowning in America.
With enough amplification from drown child's noses some virus fragments might be found. But vaccines won't help with drowning or car crashes, which each kill more children.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.23.21268276v...
Don't forget to consider the baseline risk of myocarditis in this cohort as well as the risk of myocarditis with COVID itself.
I'm also not sure where you're finding numbers about the risk of serious morbidity or mortality with COVID-vaccine-associated myocarditis, please share if you know. My impression is that -- much like COVID -- while cases can be serious / fatal, most cases end up making a full recovery without further sequelae.
"Persistent Cardiac Magnetic Resonance Imaging Findings in a Cohort of Adolescents with Post-Coronavirus Disease 2019 mRNA Vaccine Myopericarditis" https://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476(22)00282-7/fulltext
Is that right? I just keep hearing that there is some conspiracy trying to obscure the data, I figured it would be unavailable.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34865500/
We report on 139 adolescents and young adults with 140 episodes of suspected myocarditis (49 confirmed, 91 probable) at 26 centers. ... Twenty-six patients (18.7%) were in the intensive care unit, 2 were treated with inotropic/vasoactive support, and none required extracorporeal membrane oxygenation or died. Median hospital stay was 2 days (range, 0-10; IQR, 2-3).
Of 97 patients who underwent cardiac MRI at a median 5 days (range, 0-88; IQR, 3-17) from symptom onset, 75 (77.3%) had abnormal findings: 74 (76.3%) had late gadolinium enhancement, 54 (55.7%) had myocardial edema, and 49 (50.5%) met Lake Louise criteria. Among 26 patients with left ventricular ejection fraction <55% on echocardiogram, all with follow-up had normalized function (n=25).
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2788346
Approximately 96% of persons (784/813) were hospitalized and 87% (577/661) of these had resolution of presenting symptoms by hospital discharge. The most common treatment was nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (589/676; 87%).
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34734240/
All cases occurred within 2 weeks of a dose of the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine with the majority occurring within 3 days (range 1-13 days) following the second dose (6/7 patients, 86%). Overall, cases were mild, and all patients survived.
COVID-19 Vaccination-Associated Myocarditis in Adolescents: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34389692/
None of the patients required inotropic, mechanical, or circulatory support. There were no deaths. Follow-up data obtained in 86% of patients at a mean of 35 days revealed resolution of symptoms, arrhythmias, and ventricular dysfunction.
From the paper you linked to:
""" Median hospital length of stay was 2 days (range 1-4 days) with no intensive care unit admission and no significant morbidity or mortality. All patients had resolution of chest pain and down-trending serum troponin level before discharge.
Follow-up cardiac MRI LVEF (57.7 ± 2.8%) was significantly improved from initial (54.5 ± 5.5%, P < .05), and none of the patients had regional wall motion abnormalities. LVEF by echocardiogram was normal for all patients at the time of follow-up. """
Though to be fair -- because I think there are too many shills on both sides of this topic -- it also notes:
""" Notably, in our cohort, although there was significant reduction in LGE at follow-up, abnormal strain persisted for the majority of patients at follow-up. """
So thank you for prompting me to delve a little more into the outcomes of the vaccine-associated myocarditis cases. I feel even more reassured than before -- the cases seem to be exceedingly rare, even in the highest risk demographic. For anyone outside that highest-risk demographic, the risk of COVID-related myocarditis is higher than vaccine-related. When this exceedingly rare complication occurs, the majority of cases result in a brief hospitalization during which they are treated with ibuprofen.
I think it will be interesting to see how the risks of having COVID a second time compare with the risks of vaccination. I think it's fully possible that the immunity from prior infection could drastically reduce the risks of disease and shift the balance, but until this is better understood, it seems that the risks of vaccination seem to be extremely low -- even lower than the risks of COVID, even for the lowest risk demographics.