It’s been said that what bleeds leads..
The headline shown can certainly make us “bleed.”
It can make us bleed with fear. It can make us bleed with apprehension.
But does something like this illustrate the the truth?
The truth about the real risk that Covid presents to our youth.
The type of “truth” that is based on accurate data, rather than media induced fear or political propaganda, to help society make informed decisions
With the recent shaming of those, such as #Matthew McConaughey, #Gisele Bundchen, and others who have advocated a pro-choice approach (note..this does not mean an #anti-vax approach) to this matter, I decided to do some of my own personal research.
The data presented below is a synthesis of various reports and is not perfect because the data bases are not 100% consistent in the age-ranges, and manner, in which their data is tabulated.
However, despite that lack of exacting congruency between the various data bases, I believe that you will get a reasonably accurate picture of what is happening.
According to the Annie E Casey Foundation (Kids Count Data Center) there are an estimated 41 million children between the ages of 5 and 14 years of age.
Based upon a CDC morbidity and mortality report, the “all cause” number of deaths in this age group, between Oct 2020 and Oct 2021, was 5,556, of which 67 were attributed to #Covid. (1.2% of all deaths)
A deeper dive into these stats suggest that a 5-14 year old’s chance of dying from #Covid is 1 in 611,940 (41 million children age 5-14 divided by 67 Covid-related deaths) as compared to the chance of dying from some non-covid cause being 1 in 7,379 (41 million divided by 5489 non-covid deaths)
In other words, a child between the ages of 5-14 has about an 83 times greater risk of dying from a non-covid related cause than they do from Covid.
For context, consider that, depending on the source, the risk of dying for a lightening strike is somewhere between 1 in 300,000 to 1 in 600,000.
It is also worthwhile to consider some other CDC data, stating that, on average, 390 children between the ages 1-4 die each year from accidental drowning. There are 19.5 million children within this age group, placing their risk of accidental drowning at 1 in 50,000, or about 10 times more likely to drown than to die from Covid.
Another data base that I looked at, roughly corresponding to the same time frame between Oct. 2020 and Oct. 2021, showed the following incident-related deaths:
· Accidents accounted for 969 deaths, or a relative risk of 1 in 42,311
· Cancer accounted for 525 deaths, a risk of 1 in 78,095
· Congenital birth defects resulted in 274 deaths, a risk of 1 in 149,635
· Assault and homicide lead to 207 fatalities, a risk of 1 in 198,067
· Heart related deaths, 115, or a 1 in 356,521 risk
· There were 84 recorded flu-related deaths, a risk rate of 1 in 488,095.
· 66 deaths were attributed to suicide and Covid, each having a risk rate of 1 in 621,212
The most recent data, that I’ve found, regarding the relative risks of Covid, for those age 5 through 11 comes from a power point presentation given by Jefferson Jones, MD, an epidemiology task force member for the CDC Covid-19 public health response team.
His report relates that about 1.9 million Covid cases were diagnosed in children between the ages of 5-11 between March 2020 and Oct 2021, of which 94 died. In other words, .45% of those children who contracted Covid lost their lives to it.
The statistics described above are also consistent with studies that have been done in England (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01897-w#ref-CR1). These studies showed:
Of 3,105 deaths from all causes among the 12 million or so people under 18 in England between March 2020 and February 2021, 25 were attributable to COVID-19 — a rate of about 2 for every million people in this age range.
About half of those deaths were in individuals with an underlying complex disability with high health-care needs, such as tube feeding or assistance with breathing.
Some conditions — including obesity and cardiac or neurological conditions — were associated with a higher risk of death or intensive-care treatment.
In summary, I want to once again emphasize that I am not against vaccination, as both my wife and I have been immunized.
However, I do believe that society, and families, are best served when their decisions are made based upon accurate information that rises above politicized agendas and the type of biased hype shown in the headlines that have been illustrated above.
Your comments and alternative thoughts are always welcome.
I also invite you to sign up for my blog as well as follow me on Instagram and Facebook.
Peace.
Ron Fudala (RDF-10)