The news that Gavin Newsom will mandate vaccines for all Kindergarten through 12th grade California children should not be surprising but its impact is actually pretty easy to calculate - and frightening. This mandate will send more California teens and kids to the hospital than COVID ever will.
According to CDC data, just over 5000 kids under the age of 18 have been hospitalized with COVID-19 in California since hospitalization records because in mid-2020. There are about 9 million kids in California’s population of 37 million.
A recent study published in pre-print by Tracy Høeg and Rational Ground’s own Josh Stevenson notes the increased rate of hospitalization among teens (especially male teens) after 2 doses of the current vaccine regiment.
Conclusions Post-vaccination CAE rate was highest in young boys aged 12-15 following dose two. For boys 12-17 without medical comorbidities, the likelihood of post vaccination dose two CAE is 162.2 and 94.0/million respectively. This incidence exceeds their expected 120-day COVID-19 hospitalization rate at both moderate (August 21, 2021 rates) and high COVID-19 hospitalization incidence. Further research into the severity and long-term sequelae of post-vaccination CAE is warranted.
The rates make it ABUNDANTLY clear that more children will be hospitalized with adverse reactions than if they had just contracted COVID-19
As we noted in another Rational Ground infographic - the risk to unvaccinated children is the same risk to a fully vaccinated 30-year old. About a 1 in 500,000 risk of dying of COVID-19.
Shouldn't the CAE rate be compared to the "infection hospitalization rate" rather than the hospitalization/capita rate?