Wuhan Virus Lethality in Children

A thought on this. Using data from the CDC, Fox News points out that children

aged 0-17 make up about 22.3% of the US population but have accounted for about 0.1% of all Wuhan Virus [my term] deaths.

According to the CIA’s World Factbook, the US population is 337.3 million; those 22.3%, then, amount to 75.2 million children. According to worldometer, there have been (as of 25 Jun 22) a skosh over 1 million total deaths in the US from or related to the virus.

That works out to [0.001 x 1,000,000] 1,000 deaths among those children. Which works out to a mortality rate of a tiny skosh over 0.1% for children overall—not a likelihood given a case or a likelihood given an infection.

That puts the likelihood of a child dying from the Wuhan Virus down in the range of that child getting a serious side effect from one of the Virus’ vaccines.

That absolutely makes the decision to vaccinate a child a matter solely for the parent and doctor (and perhaps an older child) to decide and not for any government to require through CDC “guidelines.”

In fact, vaccinating a child really seems indicated only for those children with serious comorbidities which this virus might potentiate. That’s the only metric worth weighing against the (low) probability of one of those side effects.

Oil Price Caps

The G-7 is floating a new sanction against Russia in response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. That sanction centers on capping the price nations would pay for Russian oil.

The Group of Seven leaders are expected to agree to start work on a mechanism to cap the purchase price of Russian oil….
Leaders will direct relevant ministers in their countries to work on the details of Russian oil caps, which would create a buyers’ cartel of Western nations and their allies, the official said.

To the extent such a cap would have a material effect on Putin’s economy, or more importantly on Putin’s war (how many battalions have the current sanctions forced Putin to withdraw from Ukraine?), and I’m not convinced a cap would have any material effect, I suggest a cap with which to begin would be the deeply discounted price at which Putin already is selling his oil to India and the People’s Republic of China.

On the other hand, though, there’s likely not much urgency to this virtue-signaling move:

There is no timeline yet on when the details will be worked out.