DAVE ROSS

Ross: Asking if you should vaccinate your kids is the wrong question

Jan 7, 2022, 6:10 AM | Updated: 12:18 pm

vaccinate, teenager...

Dr. John Choe hands a vaccine card to his son, Benjamin Choe, 13, after he received a first dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine from nurse Maureen Stevens at Harborview Medical Center on May 13, 2021, in Seattle, Washington. (Photo by David Ryder/Getty Images)

(Photo by David Ryder/Getty Images)

Thursday, on the Dori Monson Show, Dori tried to get to the bottom of an accusation the governor made at his COVID news conference this week:

“It’s very disturbing to me. I heard on the radio the other day, KIRO Radio, some talk person saying that it’s more dangerous to get the vaccine than not to. What a bunch of baloney,” Gov. Inslee said.

Dori knew HE hadn’t said that – at least in those words – but the culprit quickly came forward.

It was John Curley, and he stands by his comment because he was talking about young people:

“Published in the New England Journal of Medicine, quote, ‘males between 16 and 29 years of age have an increased risk of developing heart problems after receiving a second dose of coronavirus vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna,'” Curley said.

None of those young people died from the side effects, but John’s point was … if a young person is healthy, since the risk of young people dying of COVID itself is so small – why risk even the rare side effects of a vaccine?

Which led to a discussion of whether, statistically, it makes any sense to vaccinate kids.

And that’s what got me interested in this – how passionate the discussion gets when people talk about vaccinating their kids.

Because if you’re passionate about the vaccine’s side effects on kids, here’s a number that will REALLY terrify you. This is from 2019 – latest numbers available – in 2019, 2,375 teenagers ages 13-19 died in car crashes, … which of course doesn’t count the life-changing injuries.

That’s compared to zero who have died from any COVID vaccine side effect, and it’s more than 3 and a half times the number of teens age 17 and under who have EVER died of COVID itself.

So if the risk of side effects has you questioning whether to let your teenager get the vaccine, you also need to seriously question whether you should let that teenager get anywhere near a car. Especially the part of the car where the driver’s seat is.

Listen to Seattle’s Morning News weekday mornings from 5 – 9 a.m. on KIRO Radio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.

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