I think the "return to normality" is when the number of new cases reported each day drops to almost nothing and deaths are uncommon. Currently, in the U.S. we're about 70 thousand new cases a day, which is about where we were at the height of the second wave in mid-summer. Deaths are around 750 a day.

I think we'll get to normality eventually, but it may take longer than anyone has patience for, and that will only push it out further as people give up on social distancing and masking.

Only 22.7% of US pop is fully vaccinated as of 0600 ET today.

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations

When that reaches +80% the recommendations will ease more but as of now:

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/fully-vac...

Total COVID deaths for people aged 0-17 in the USA are 246 so far.

That's not that many. Despite my wife and I getting vaccinated, I'm not completely sure what the correct answer is for our kids.

To put those numbers into perspective, more kids die from the flu in any given year (despite vaccination!). And far more kids die from car related accidents, and cars are a daily fact of life here.

I'm also interested in the other longer term effects of COVID on kids, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of information out there about it.

You talk as if it's a clear cut answer. Given the numbers involved I don't see how it can be.

> Also don't think the long-tail risk of an mRNA vaccine can be worse then COVID's long-tail risk.

It absolutely could, and that should be self-evident.

> Also pretty sure risk of death outweighs literally any possible long-tail risk, so still seems sensible for the young to get the vax.

This is just not true. The risk of death in children from COVID-19 is so low you literally should not ever worry about it. If you want to compare numbers in an academic sense go ahead, but the fact that actual adults are wasting valuable cognitive and emotional energy worrying about their kids is a great tragedy.

The recorded COVID-19 deaths in children are, by the way, using the absurd definition of a COVID-19 case/death that most of the western world is using; a definition where having PCR-confirmed SARS-2 infection means that ANY death is classified as a COVID death. This is not how this is supposed to work; there is supposed to be a distinction between the virus and the disease, but we define the disease as merely having the virus! It's completely absurd. Indeed I'm writing an article about this concept (pathological vs physiological) right now

We have never deployed an mRNA vaccine before. We don't know what effect it might have on gametes.