Coronavirus: Thread

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> 'Follow The Science': A Potent Source Of Authority For Politicians


UK Does Not Advise Vaccines For 5-11 Year Olds, While US Starts To Mandate Them

https://brownstone.org/articles/uk-does-not-advise-vaccines-for-5-11-year-olds-while-the-us-starts-to-mandate-them/


It is always instructive to highlight differences in the vaccination
policies between nations. After all, the clinical trials that guide
these decisions are the same across nations.

Yet, different experts can view the same risk-benefit decisions
differently, or view uncertainty differently. In my mind, there is
clearly a problem if one nation advises AGAINST doing something while
another location MANDATES it. I think we should all agree that this
makes no sense. One should not deploy the brute force power of the
mandate if a decision is sufficiently debatable that another nation
literally advises against it.

This already happened with LA County’s mandate for two doses for teens
12-15. I detailed how LA’s school mandate was in tension with UK and
Norway’s guidance with respect to number of doses and timing of doses
in the US News and World Report.

Now, we see it again. The UK’s expert body JCVI (Joint Committee on
Vaccination and Immunisation) is moving forward with vaccinating 5 to
11 year olds with underlying health conditions, who are at risk, but
not all healthy 5 to 11 year olds.

When it comes to healthy 5 to 11 year olds this is what JCVI is waiting for:

All quite reasonable, if you ask me!

Now, contrast the UK with the US.

New Orleans has already moved ahead and mandated vaccination in 5 to
11 year olds. And the AFT president has said she stands behind such
mandates. New Orleans policy goes into effect February 1.

The penalty for non-compliance with these mandates will likely be
exclusion from in person schooling. That penalty is far harsher than
the risk of sars-cov-2 in a healthy unvaccinated child, which is very
low. The best data for that is the new Germany paper.

Can we at least acknowledge how crazy it is that one nation DOES NOT
RECOMMEND something while another nation MANDATES IT to attend
something as basic and necessary as grade school?

In 2019, in the wake of poor uptake of MMR (a vaccine with far less
disagreement & far more uncertainty) UNICEF wrote:

It is a shame we cannot live up to that standard now. Our fear has
overtaken our compassion and sense.