You elided my qualifier from your quote: "when we are talking about risks of completely unknown side effects"—the argument being made was that we can't possibly know the risks of the vaccine because we can't ever know with certainty until we've tested it for a long time, and therefore we should avoid it. My point is that the virus has far more "unknowns" to it, so that argument sucks.
As to vaccinating children more generally and assessing known risks, there is no simple answer. What are the risk levels for different age groups? What is the damage to kids if they pass COVID onto their parents or grandparents and they die? I'm not saying that we should just blanket give it to everyone, but I don't think that one stat is enough to say don't give it to any child, or that no mandate could be justified.
As to vaccinating children more generally and assessing known risks, there is no simple answer. What are the risk levels for different age groups? What is the damage to kids if they pass COVID onto their parents or grandparents and they die? I'm not saying that we should just blanket give it to everyone, but I don't think that one stat is enough to say don't give it to any child, or that no mandate could be justified.