One common argument against vaccinating children (or even younger adults) is that the risk of a bad outcome among children from a COVID infection is rare. Some of these same people admit that they give all the other childhood vaccines to their kids, but the reality is that many of these other vaccinations are against diseases with a similar risk profile.

For example, in unvaccinated populations, the complication rate of Rubella is about 1/1,000 live births (stillbirth or disability). Pertussis (whooping cough) infected about 150,000 people a year in the U.S. before vaccinations, with close to a thousand people (mostly children) dying. The most serious long term effect of mumps was deafness (often in one ear), and caused several thousand cases a year in the U.S. among children before widespread vaccination. Measles killed about 8,000 Americans of all ages before widespread vaccination. Before the chickenpox vaccine, the disease killed a handful of children a year, hospitalized a few hundred, and made many thousands more miserable.

Compared to this, 1.3% of children with diagnosed COVID had been hospitalized, and there had been 172 deaths as of December 17, a number that is probably around 300 fatalities now, given the overall trajectory of deaths during that period of time.

Leaving aside the protective benefits for the non-vaccinated, and the likelihood of children getting COVID later in life when it might be more serious, it still appears that COVID, as a disease, is within the same risk profile as other illness we are already vaccinating children against. It is more dangerous than chickenpox, but less dangerous than pertussis, for example.

Given that a quarter of a billion vaccine doses have already been distributed in the U.S., with more than enough time to understand potential complications, it seems prudent for people to vaccinate their children based solely its protective effects on the children themselves, wider societal benefits not included.