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A physician-scientist from the University of Cincinnati says we should intentionally expose our kids to COVID-19. Is it morally right? Will parents willingly expose their children to the novel Coronavirus while the media runs a real-time tally of cases and deaths? Will you do it?
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10 replies on “Expose Your Kids to COVID-19 Now: Is It Morally Right? Will You Do It?”
Herd immunity is the answer. I guess I am a right wing extremist, because I believe this is just another cold virus. One of 5 now in circulation and yes, it is circulating. For 98.5% of the population this is either nothing at all, a mild to moderate to nasty cold. In NYC only 3 people under 10 who were infected died – all of them with severe underlying conditions. Your probability of dying as a child from this virus is a tiny fraction of the risk of being hit by a lightning bolt.
We don’t know yet, but the “herd” may already have achieved immunity. A typical new virus will quickly ramp up to infect a certain percentage of the population, until it can no longer propagate on above an R0=1 spread on average. That is usually around 20%-30% of the population. The initial R0 of COVID-19 is now being estimated at between 2.0 to 2.5, meaning that is the number of persons on average that an infected person can transfer the virus to. It doesn’t take a math genius (even a politician could figure it out) that if you get to an immunity level of 50% this virus will not be going anywhere fast. Delaying its progress, which is exactly what the shutdown accomplishes, just delays its peak. It is only deadly to a small segment of the population, most of whom are already in a form of quarantine. This shutdown at this point is accomplishing zero, nada, zip. Oh wait, it is destroying the economy, yes guaranteed.
When your numbers up, it’s up.
Texas girl, 10, who made 100 hand-sewn corona virus masks for nurses, killed in ATV accident last week. 🙁
Hey! I live in Cincinnati! And Ohio was the first to shut down schools and restaurants and second to shut down the whole state. University of Cincinnati medical is research and teaching hospital. The clot busting drugs were first tested there. And yes, Bill herd immunity is the solution. And oddly enough, vaccinations create herd immunity. And back when I was a child, I caught both types of measles and mumps, but not chicken pox. I survived. We are too risk adverse with no comparisons. And I am not personally offended by the Cincinnati jibes. I find it funny. Come visit the first pro baseball team at home. First pro fire department. The zoo with Fiona the hippo.(look it up) And lots of births of endangered and other species. National underground freedom museum.(Cincinnati was a major stop on the underground railroad.) And no, I do not get paid for this. Just like people to know. Proud of some things here. Ashamed of others. No place is perfect.
Until we know A. How long immunity actually lasts, and B. How dangerous it actually is for kids, we won’t really know enough to even do a cost benefit analysis on this policy. On the A side, other Betacoronaviruses have very short immunity periods. Sometimes as short as 6 months. On the B side, healthy Scuba drivers have contracted the illness, recovered, then gone to their doctor to be re-certified for scuba diving, and found that their lungs are too damaged to go back to scuba diving, even though they’re young and healthy, and only had mild symptoms. Until we have more information, I don’t know if I would want to sign my kid up for possible long term health consequences.
That said, having a very small innoculum levels could be beneficial in getting over it without even mild symptoms, so it could be better to do a very tiny dose of the virus and isolate them until they have no virus detectable, and they have an IgG/IgM rating that is high enough. But you’re not going to get that by just sending them out in the world unprotected.
They’ve also found that the person who is the later ones in a household to get the virus actually get a higher dose of the virus than the first person in the household that get it, because families are in much more contact and closer to each other than they would be outside. That means, parents of the kids getting these treatments would be in much higher risk than the kids themselves in this scenario.
Ultimately, I think the CFR on this is not going to be as high as what we’re seeing now. 0.5-1.0 is reasonable, but there’s going to be a lot of people who are permanently damaged by it even if they recover, which is worrying.
If we do things like wearing masks, and continuing to space ourselves out in stores, and do some reworking the public spaces to put the airflow in such a way that it doesn’t push air from one person to another, we can keep the R0 as close to 1 as possible and avoid overwhelming the system. We want to get out and restart the economy, but we really don’t want to push up enough to get another peak. The closer we can get it to a flat line or a slowly declining line the better. Maybe some of these new ideas like UV-C lamps in public could help as well.
Great points made by both. I agree with the suggestion about kids being exposed to the virus because they are the least vulnerable, but that will, or would, happen when at school.
I’ve said this before, back in 1968 when I contracted the Hong Kong flu, the country did not shutdown. This new “gift” from China may be somewhat more serious but not to the point where life stops. Parents of 1968 must have been of a different stock because most didn’t depend on the government for ALL their needs.
I agree whole heartedly with everything you said, Bill. At first I had to admit that our governor, despite being a Democrat, was doing a good job managing the situation. However, lately I’m hearing a little too much about, “…keeping everybody safe.” At the age of 67, I suppose I fall into the vulnerable population, except that I am generally in good health. But I think I should be allowed to take care of myself. Ultimately, we who are adults are each responsible for our own safety, our own health, our own selves. If they start advancing the idea that those with anti-bodies be given pass cards that will allow them their right to move about (that’s what “liberty” means) that those without the pass card will be denied, I’m ready to go out there, expose myself, and take my chances.
It doesn’t invalidate the argument but you can’t really point only to the risk to the children. Unless you’re going to send them off to COVID Camp for a month, any who get infected will also expose the parents. So you’d have to include the risk up to about age 50 if you’re talking kids up to 18.
In the 50’s and 60’s they used to have Chicken Pox parties to expose kids intentionally.
Unfortunately this is a bit more dangerous than chickenpox. Although the odds of the worst case scenario are very low for children, the effects of the worst case scenario are astronomically awful for any family.
Actually for a child, this virus is way less dangerous than chicken pox. If you’ve had chickenpox, then you still have the varicella-zoster virus in your nerve cells. It never goes away and it can lie dormant for years. Even though you are now immune to chicken pox, in later years you will be much morel likely to get shingles – a very nasty disease. Corona, like a cold, is one and done.