4 ms·

I lived with my parents for all of last year and my mom was going thru chemo, so at the time, the threat to her life from covid was very present in my mind. Tha

I lived with my parents for all of last year and my mom was going thru chemo, so at the time, the threat to her life from covid was very present in my mind. That has gone away since she got vaccinated and I'm grateful. At the same time, my best friend's parents are not vaccinated and I worry that they will get very sick and/or die. My great uncle died from covid. I agree that maybe the phrase "easily kill grandma" was hyperbole from the other poster, and yet i don't know their grandma's situation and the way I read it, their grandma cannot be vaccinated. Regarding the vaccination rates, I don't think they are as high as you had said/estimated. What I found[0] said 65-74 was around 80% fully vaccinated in the US and 75 and up was around 77% fully vaccinated. If I did the math correctly on my phone, the difference between 80.83% fully vaccinated 65-74 year olds and 95% fully vaccinated is 4,474,231 people. The diff between 77.1% of 75 and up and 95% of them is 4,027,214. While estimating 95% when the percentages were 80.83% and 77.1% may seem insignificant, combined, operating on a large set of people, the difference between your estimate and what I see reported by the CDC adds up to 8,501,445 people...which is just the difference, not the total number of people not fully vaccinated in those age groups. I also think that those percentages are not evenly distributed across geography, as some places have higher vaccination rates and other lower ones, which could make it lower than 80% or 77% in certain pockets. I'll be the first to admit I don't know if I did the math right above and that I know very little about how statistics work. I think it is very hard for many of us to avoid exaggerating and bending data to align with our fears. Just as I think you were doing your best to estimate the percentage of people fully vaccinated, I assume the original poster was doing their best to estimate the risk to the life of their grandma. [0]: https://usafacts.org/visualizations/covid-vaccine-tracker-states/ https://usafacts.org/visualizations/covid-vaccine-tracker-st...

clairity 5y ago
perhaps i misheard it, but i literally heard the 95% for over-65s figure this morning on the radio, which seemed to be quoting the cdc (but again, it didn't have my full and undivided attention). the difference could also be first dose vs. 'fully vaccinated'.
- jimkleiber 5y ago
  At least this link says even for first dose it's only 91% and 87%, again, which could be off, yet seems as if it would be accurate. Again, I don't know. What I've learned this year is that statistics can be very unintuitive and I know so little about how they work, that in uncertain times like these, I almost feel reliant on choosing someone to trust who I think understands this stuff better than I.
  - clairity 5y ago
    @nuerow cited nytimes[0] on the 95% estimate in another comment[1]. for the purposes of my argument, the precise number isn’t important, just that it equates to “most”. and incidentally, that’s the shape of most arguments on most things, because we’re embedded in unbounded uncertainty. the most precision we can have about most things is ‘a little’, ‘some’, ‘a bunch’, ‘most’, etc., not something like 54.736%, despite how enticing precision like that can be. it’s mostly engineering where precision like that is practical, available, and useful. [0]: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/covid-19-vaccine-doses.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/covid-19-vaccine... [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28848408 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28848408
    - jimkleiber 5y ago
      I think precision also matters when dealing with large numbers. If it's 60% plus/minus 30%, not such big deal if dealing with 10 people, it'd be either 3, 6, or 9 people, a range of 6 people. But if it's plus/minus 30% when dealing with a population of 100,000,000, that's a range of 60,000,000 people. That being said, yes, I agree there are many situations where precision doesn't matter that much and that qualifiers work sufficiently to describe the general sense of the situation. I think what actually drove me to write my precision rant was ironically where you stated that "easily" was hyperbole, which I took to mean as you believing it was not an accurate or precise enough description of the actions that might kill the grandma. Perhaps this thread wouldn't have happened if the person wrote "I might possibly kill grandma." I don't say that facetiously—I think these disagreements about the accuracy and precision of our observations of the world can lead to so much conflict, as it has for me in my life. So, in a way, I'm grateful for you going back and forth with me, as I've learned even more deeply that while other people may seem to use too much or too little precision to me, I may use too much or too little for them.

clairity 5y ago

perhaps i misheard it, but i literally heard the 95% for over-65s figure this morning on the radio, which seemed to be quoting the cdc (but again, it didn't have my full and undivided attention). the difference could also be first dose vs. 'fully vaccinated'.

jimkleiber 5y ago
At least this link says even for first dose it's only 91% and 87%, again, which could be off, yet seems as if it would be accurate. Again, I don't know. What I've learned this year is that statistics can be very unintuitive and I know so little about how they work, that in uncertain times like these, I almost feel reliant on choosing someone to trust who I think understands this stuff better than I.
- clairity 5y ago
  @nuerow cited nytimes[0] on the 95% estimate in another comment[1]. for the purposes of my argument, the precise number isn’t important, just that it equates to “most”. and incidentally, that’s the shape of most arguments on most things, because we’re embedded in unbounded uncertainty. the most precision we can have about most things is ‘a little’, ‘some’, ‘a bunch’, ‘most’, etc., not something like 54.736%, despite how enticing precision like that can be. it’s mostly engineering where precision like that is practical, available, and useful. [0]: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/covid-19-vaccine-doses.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/covid-19-vaccine... [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28848408 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28848408
  - jimkleiber 5y ago
    I think precision also matters when dealing with large numbers. If it's 60% plus/minus 30%, not such big deal if dealing with 10 people, it'd be either 3, 6, or 9 people, a range of 6 people. But if it's plus/minus 30% when dealing with a population of 100,000,000, that's a range of 60,000,000 people. That being said, yes, I agree there are many situations where precision doesn't matter that much and that qualifiers work sufficiently to describe the general sense of the situation. I think what actually drove me to write my precision rant was ironically where you stated that "easily" was hyperbole, which I took to mean as you believing it was not an accurate or precise enough description of the actions that might kill the grandma. Perhaps this thread wouldn't have happened if the person wrote "I might possibly kill grandma." I don't say that facetiously—I think these disagreements about the accuracy and precision of our observations of the world can lead to so much conflict, as it has for me in my life. So, in a way, I'm grateful for you going back and forth with me, as I've learned even more deeply that while other people may seem to use too much or too little precision to me, I may use too much or too little for them.