I don’t think they are related? Different dates on the announcements. The WH announcement didn’t specify manufacturers; it just specified how much would be shared through COVAX vs targeted efforts.
If we said that COVID 19 causes children to watch more porn, they would start. The USA does not actually like their kids. If they did, there would be decent parental leave, every law protecting the safety of kids, child safety would be considered more important than parental control, medical care for children would be affordable for all children, etc, etc, etc.
The only thing from which people want to protect kids in this country is “immorality”. That means “everything that the adults think is a sin”. That is why showing affection was prohibited on TV and movies, but not killing or beating each other. That is why age limitations on drinking by kids precede child labor laws by decades, and that is why a kid cannot drink before the age of 21, but can be forced to work all day by the time they are 16 and can be given a gun and told to die for the country by the age of 17 or 18.
Then there are the marriage laws in the USA. In 34 states, a kid can be married before they are allowed into a PG-17 film. So they can have sex, if their parents approve, but cannot see sex in a cinema. Because laws that protect kid’s bodies and health are a lot more lenient than those that supposedly protect their “soul”.
Need I talk about basic gun safety laws which fail to pass is so many states in the USA? Over 3,000 kids die each year from gunshot wounds. Yet many states do not pass laws that would enforce basic gun safety rules.
It took until 1977 for laws to protect kids in cars to start being passed, but it took less than 20 years to enact restrictions of what kids could read in comic books.
So no, people in the USA do not actually care that much about the physical safety and health of kids here. I really do not think that the people who refuse to believe that COVID 19 is real or a danger will not change their minds when more kids start dying.
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Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
(And a variant may be unkind to the under 30s.)
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Some will undoubtedly suspect higher risk of ineffectiveness - it’s just not that easy to measure and antibody testing isn’t even recommended. For instance, the FDA advisory: Antibody Testing Is Not Currently Recommended to Assess Immunity After COVID-19 Vaccination: FDA Safety Communication | FDA. And this from MD Anderson which references the CDC’s advice: Does a negative antibody test mean the COVID-19 vaccine didn’t work? | MD Anderson Cancer Center
I have made no assumption about either Covid susceptibility or vaccine immunity given a particular age group. In my state the average age for breakthrough cases were clearly in the 65+ age range so that is what I used in my rough ballpark. It’s rough analysis but still data-driven. There may be better ways to compute this risk - how would you propose doing it?
Pre-existing medical conditions are of course reasons to be extra careful. But again the data suggest that these risks are very small. It’s ok to be risk-averse. The same, by the way, applies to those who are declining vaccination until more data are available. But we really need to pay attention to the data as well.
No. Group (a) exists. Group (b) exists. Group (a) needs to make sure they aren’t over-estimating their personal risk and Group (b) needs to make sure not to tread in Group (a)'s personal space. Then both groups can get along with no conflict. If Group (a)'s only interest is that Group (b) get vaccinated, and Group (b)'s only interest is to play “Covid lotto” and ignore other stacked measures then - yeah, you have a problem. But that doesn’t model Reality.
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@MWolf , yes you are absolutely right. Sobering thoughts.
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True that. But I’m inclined to believe it’s the former. This is history in the making and what ‘they’ come up with over the next couple of years to ‘attempt’ to fix the mess we’re in will be interesting (to say the least) to see. 
Apologies. Totally off- topic.
Not sure we can get back there but I’d like to hear from any CC’ers or close to them people who have vaccine reluctance - so the human element, emotions, quandaries, as opposed to study after study, data after data.
If “vaccine reluctance” is the thread, then we should allow people who have those feelings/emotions of reluctance to share why and not scare them away. It’s fine that many of us “don’t get reluctance” but to learn, we have to hear and try to understand those gut feelings that keep them from getting the vaccine.
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This doesn’t surprise me at all. It seems like inserting an unknown variable into a pregnancy would be a little worrysome. Especially one that is already a high risk pregnancy.
Although someone who is pregnant would want to be extra paranoid about COVID-19 as well, since getting infected while pregnant is known to increase risks of pregnancy.
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Neither of my nieces are high risk, though one is having twins. It surprised me that their OBGYNs were on board since I know others who have told their patients not to allow grandparents and others any contact after birth if they are not vaccinated.
This is not directed at you. But that ship has long since sailed. The reaction from many on this board means that few people will be willing to share anything in terms of the basis for their particular reluctance. Always struck me as odd that on a board dedicated to higher learning, so many here would be so intolerant of other view points. But that goes well beyond this thread.
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Already alluded to this upthread, but the main thing I am hearing is mistrust of the medical industry.
Brother: he will wait and see, he feels the EUA process was rushed. I think he will probably be open to vaccination when full approval is achieved. In the meantime I worry about him the most, he has many risk factors.
Sister: she is a single mother in a remote area and she is afraid of side effects from vaccination interfering with her ability to care for her daughter. Her situation is incredibly complicated and influenced by the most horrifying divorce proceedings I personally have ever heard of. She has instead elected to be extra cautious about social distancing - which is not hard for her to do. I would not make the same decision but I can absolutely see why she is doing it. I think she will eventually get vaccinated and I think in the meantime she is much safer than many others due to her remote living situation.
Uncle: had a bad reaction to some vaccine they gave him in the military, followed by a poor/nonexistent response from the doctors. He won’t get this one unless he is forced to. (He also thinks 9-11 was an inside job, but I have not heard him say anything conspiracy related about this vaccine.)
Acquaintance who won’t let her daughters be vaccinated: worried about lack of data on fertility.
Most everyone else I’ve talked to: too soon. Wait and see.
Me and my husband and daughters were banging down the doors to get vaccinated so it’s been hard for me to see people’s hesitance without condemning it. But I know my condemnation won’t help.
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Just trying to keep the thread alive and more meaningful!
It is natural when people “accuse” rather than “discuss” for things to get heated - I think that is sort of what happened here. Thought I’d give it one shot to redeem. 
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My son is also in the wait the see. he wants data out for a year on these vaccines . If not for the colleges requiring them or getting a proper exemption, I would not be as upset with his decision. I get why we need these people vaccinated, but I can see their wait and see side as well. Most of us have not been fully vaccinated for more than 6 months yet, and the benefits (not dying, covid long haul issues, etc) for many outweigh what may come up, but for younger people (my S is 20) I can understand his opinion as well. I wish I could convince him to change his mind. Only if the school denies his exemption will he reluctantly get vaccinated. Once again many people are not “anti vax” they just want full FDA approval first. I have a friend that feels that same way. Having gotten Covid in April, she feels that at least now she has the time to wait. Also the vaccines might get better /change in a few months, and all of us will need boosters and those who waited might get “a better version”. Its so hard to say. Short of kicking my son out of my home and financially cutting him off, not sure what to do. It has really hurt our relationship . Being ASD and appealing to the compassionate side is not a strategy. Offering carrots to a kid that has no materialistic/social desires is also hard. We have taken trips off the table and he does not care.
So back to the thread is that he is vaccine reluctant right now. He is not the only one. Employers, schools, etc are forcing this to make “covid go away ASAP , and go back to “normal””. When is back to normal living with Covid as we lived with other illnesses previously? Its not going fully away world wide. Even in a place like Israel, UK cases are rising again even in the vaccinated. Granted cases are not serious and mostly asymptomatic, but still. My brain hurts. I hope something convinces my son to get vaccinated so at least he complies with society, even if it wont necessarily prevent him from getting a covid variant.
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Isn’t a twin pregnancy by definition “high risk”?
In any case, I could certainly understand being very ambivalent about getting this particular vaccine while pregnant. Even if one’s doctor recommends it, I get feeling wary about it because it’s not just yourself who is affected, but an unborn child. I was very happy to get my vaccine, but if I had a daughter who was pregnant who followed advice not to take the vaccine, I would be supportive of that decision, though I would hope that she would take extra precautions to avoid exposure to COVID (really, any infectious disease) in the same spirit of protecting her child.
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I’ll add: it scares people away, prevents them from sharing - presumably out of fear of being ridiculed, deemed ‘un-this’, ‘mis-that’ (and all the names that I’ve seen here) and whose opinions are not worthy of consideration, stifling the conversation, and perpetuating the ever circular echo chamber.
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Good post @stringbird . You explain individual feelings/roadblocks. You acknowledge that you don’t agree but also aren’t beating your head against the wall condemning.
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I don’t see much worry about kids and Covid-19 in my neck of the woods. Kids have continued to play sports at all age levels throughout the pandemic (after an initial pause until mid to late summer 2020) and had the choice to go to school in-person (which about half of the kids at my wife’s suburban high school did all school year long). My wife has not seen or heard of any long term physical health consequences of Covid-19 amongst the student body of the 1,500 or so students who came in-person, but she did hear some sad stories of families affected by Covid-19.
I can not imagine the guilt of being a young person whose parent or grandparent died and believing that they possibly brought Covid-19 into their home, so I think about the psychological traumas just as much as the physical ones. I believe it would be easy for most of the vaccine reluctant folks I know to live with their own consequences, but it is tough if being reluctance causes real harm to someone they love (dying and leaving a family behind who really needs them, or passing on Covid-19 to a family member who dies or ends up with long haul Covid). Maybe it is just my nature, but I have a hard time believing that most vaccine reluctant people do not take those possible serious outcomes into account, which makes it easier for me to listen to those with vaccine reluctance.
I have a question for this thread. Do you think that the the vaccine reluctant percentage of the population would be higher, lower, or the same, if the age groups most affected by Covid-19 were inverted?
Most people experience “gut feelings” at times and heed them. I accept that. I may not understand because I don’t share them, but I accept, as hard as it is in this particular situation. As a (retired) pharmacist, it makes me sad that people distrust the medical community. Blows my mind really. The advances I saw in my 41 years of practice, mostly hospital, are extraordinary. No need to even start pointing them out. We all know and have probably benefitted. And the mRNA vaccines are another spectacular development that have been studied for decades.
I for one had a true gut reaction to the thought of getting Covid. And I have done everything I can to avoid getting it.
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It won’t be inverted really, but if the Delta variant truly affects those who are younger harder than “basic” Covid, we’ll see what happens.
I saw on the news that 80% of senior citizens have been at least partially vaccinated as of some date in May vs 38% of those between 18-29. The groups more at risk seem to be weighing their odds accordingly. If the risk changes, it makes sense that the percentages will change too.
I gave up caring if others get vaccinated or not when the data came out showing my vaccine appears to help me regardless of their choice. Others make their own choices. 93yo FIL is old enough to have his vax potentially not work as well, but even he has figured he’s done as much as he can so is back to living his life. I wish those who interact with him (cashiers, friends stopping by) would be vaccinated or keep their distance, but there’s nothing I can do about it so don’t lose sleep, nor does anyone ask them. To be fair, H worries more about the last part than I do. It’s his dad.
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