Happy New Year.

>>Unvaccinated children with COVID are generating an "uptick" in pediatric emergency room visits. What are we even arguing about?

/edit/ I had prepared a detailed response but have replaced with something more general.

In the USA, jabbing for the 5-11y group was only approved on 29 October using a special formulation that needed to be prepared and distributed so that when the "uptick" began, few kids would be eligible for a second dose or the required 2 additional weeks to be considered vaccinated. Hence inevitable high "unvaccinated" rates. Your citation's author confirms this.

Meanwhile CDC has just published some data suggesting post-Pfizer myocarditis in the 5-11y group might not be as common as in older youths and young men. If so and if the trend holds up, this is very good news that may prompt parents concerned at lack of pediatric data, to take the plunge.

While you might expect kids' admissions to now follow the pattern seen in adults as jab rates rose, omicron's antibody evasion and highly infectious nature may confound expectations just as we're about to see a new generation of vaccines whose type has many years of safety record and that are likely to remain more effective against mutations. Example: Novavax.

Prediction: as Novavax becomes available, shortcomings of other vax options may start to be more acknowledged, with people now pushed towards Novavax if omicron is virulent enough to justify it. IMHO you'll see a sudden increase in adult rates too as "anti-vaxxers" get the jab.

>>As it stands, though, I am fortunate to be a member of a nation that has one of the most well developed public health and medical science communities the world has ever seen. People that are legitimately experts to mull these questions. They have direct access not only to the latest reports, but to the scientists and labs that are generating them around the world. So with this incredible good fortune to have these people to advise me, I am going to second guess their well supported conclusions because... why?

Ask Galileo. ;-) But since you raise US public health: the latest Commonwealth Institute rates the US very highly on preventive measures, including flu vaccination where the US is second highest in the measured >65y group. By any logic, this suggests that the US is not anti-vaxx. So why are people going around saying the opposite to explain why C19 jab rates are lowish?

Just for interest, here's some other Commonwealth Institute bullets: IMHO some context is excluded which can make the US look worse, but these are their words:

The U.S. spends more on health care as a share of the economy — nearly twice as much as the average OECD country — yet has the lowest life expectancy and highest suicide rates among the 11 nations.
The U.S. has the highest chronic disease burden and an obesity rate that is two times higher than the OECD average.
Americans had fewer physician visits than peers in most countries, which may be related to a low supply of physicians in the U.S.
Americans use some expensive technologies, such as MRIs, and specialized procedures, such as hip replacements, more often than our peers.
The U.S. outperforms its peers in terms of preventive measures — it has the one of the highest rates of breast cancer screening among women ages 50 to 69 and the second-highest rate (after the U.K.) of flu vaccinations among people age 65 and older.
Compared to peer nations, the U.S. has among the highest number of hospitalizations from preventable causes and the highest rate of avoidable deaths.

IMHO that's not a complete picture... but imagine if it was made amoral to challenge findings like those, and perhaps you'll share my unease at intolerance of dissent wrt C19 vaccines. Science is all about challenge, or else it's actually Cult.