6 ms·

This is fine but still overlooks sample bias. I.e older and more susceptible to illness people like 70 year olds are more likely to be vaxxed than 25 year olds

by mint2 5y ago

This is fine but still overlooks sample bias. I.e older and more susceptible to illness people like 70 year olds are more likely to be vaxxed than 25 year olds. Had the vaccination rate been constant across ages, the unvaccinated death rate would be far higher and the vaccinated death rate far lower. It’s bad stats to not account for the population differences like that one.

autarch 5y ago
You can dig down and view stats by age group as well.
angelzen 5y ago
The charts offer an age breakdown. Click the "Change age group" button.
microtonal 5y ago
Another factor is that if the vaccination rate is very high, this also results in fewer deaths in the unvaccinated group, since it reduces the R factor.
- hagbard_c 5y ago
  This is actually debatable given that "fully" vaccinated people who get infected - a so-called 'breakthrough infection' - seem to transmit SARS2 at close to the same rate as those unvaccinated [1,2]: fully vaccinated individuals with breakthrough infections have peak viral load similar to unvaccinated cases and can efficiently transmit infection in household settings, including to fully vaccinated contacts Whether the R-factor is reduced markedly depends on the number of breakthrough infections. In this study the infection rate in household contacts exposed to the delta variant was 25% (95% CI 18–33) for fully vaccinated individuals compared with 38% (24–53) in unvaccinated individuals, i.e. the vaccinated run ⅔ of the risk of getting infected compared to the unvaccinated. Given that the vaccinated were of a younger age than the unvaccinated the actual risk reduction is likely to be even smaller than stated. [1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(21)00648-4/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3... [2] https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/fully-vaccinated-people/123378/ https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/fully-vaccinated-people...
  - Yoric 5y ago
    Well, as confirmed by your [1], vaccinated people can transmit the virus during a much shorter duration. That's bound to severely decrease R among vaccinated crowds.
    - mint2 5y ago
      It’s frustrating how people cherry pick data and don’t think about important findings in their own cited sources. I’ve seen similar comments to that one so many times citing viral load being the same and always ignoring that the duration is much shorter. Their own citations undermine their point…
      - hagbard_c 5y ago
        It is even more frustrating to see the dogmatic approach to the fact that the vaccines are less effective than they were made out to be. The more this becomes clear, the harder it will be to keep up this narrative. I assume that you, just like most others here, wants to see these epidemics and the pandemic end as soon as possible with as little damage as possible? In that case it is adamant to be objective in the search for a way out. Current data shows that the vaccines which are now available don´t provide the level of protection against either infection, hospitalisation or death which they were supposed to do so an alternative strategy is needed. This can include a new vaccine - there are many in the works - but it has to include a way to keep society running without imposing authoritarian mandates or we stand to loose much more than just the people who succumbed to the disease.
        Yoric 5y ago
        Let me see if I understand correctly your thesis (collated from several of your responses). 1. You believe/observe that the current generation of vaccines are useful. 2. You believe/observe that the current generation of vaccines are insufficient. 3. You believe/observe that many people (on HN?) have too much faith in vaccines as a silver bullet. 4. You believe/observe that the government responses (in western countries?) are authoritarian, hence politically dangerous. I imagine you mean lockdowns and the pressure towards vaccination. I am not sure whether you also mean other measures (mandatory masking, classroom shutdowns, remote work, closing down restaurants, etc.) 5. You believe/observe that the government responses (in western countries?) are inefficient or insufficient. 6. You conclude that that the government responses must change. Is that correct? I agree with you that it is an important conversation to have. Of course, I disagree with some of your points (in particular 4.), but that's life :)
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
bob_neumann 5y ago
No, the death rate in the ONS data from England is age adjusted. So among the same aged cohorts, the vaccinated are more likely to die than the unvaccinated. Almost twice as likely for the last 6 months straight.
- bob_neumann 5y ago
  I'm speaking specifically of the age 10 to 59 age group. For the last 6 months that age group, the vaccinated are almost twice as likely to die of any cause than the unvaccinated.
  - pfg 5y ago
    That age group is too wide to make a meaningful comparison without standardising for age. Less than 10% of under-18s and less than 60% in the 18-24 age group have been fully vaccinated, whereas it's more than 80% for the 55-59 group. The unvaccinated population in that age group is significantly younger than the vaccinated population. As you would expect, older people tend to die more often. This is also mentioned in a footnote in the ONS data (and this is why they tend to focus on age-standardised figures).
    - guilhas 5y ago
      You could say the same for the covid death rate: generally saying that it is a deadly pandemic is misleading, because it disproportionately kills old and sick people, and those tend to die more often Is the average covid death rate age adjusted?
      - pfg 5y ago
        I don't understand your argument. When we're comparing "overall death rate in a world without COVID" to "death rate in a world with COVID", we're looking at the same population. We don't need to adjust for age if we're looking at the same population. This kind of misconception is so common it even has its own name: Simpson's paradox. It's laughable to think that the vaccinated population, compared to unvaccinated, is dying at the rate suggested by these numbers and no one is ringing the alarm.
repta 5y ago
Thankfully, epidemiologists around the world did not wait for mint2 on HN to realize this. All of these all-age rates are age-adjusted according to the country’s population pyramid.
sciurus 5y ago
This is one of the factors discussed at https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/math-covid-vaccinations-jeremy-mcanulty/2021/11/12/bfe89018-417f-11ec-a3aa-0255edc02eb7_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/math-covid-vaccinatio... , which is a nice overview of how innumeracy helps fuel covid misinformation.
mint2 5y ago
Wish I could edit my comment to add a statement that very sadly has been shown to have been needed. age is but one example out of many different conditions that would cause more frail people to self select. Stop replying to say one can zoom in and see age segments. And please note that the main point of the article is an ELI5 of why absolute death numbers is misleading, but that eli5 doesn’t mention the sample bias which would be a good “next layer” to mention at least in the conclusion. So yeah it’s all very fine that as so many people like to reply that a reader can dig around and find age groups assuming they already know about sample bias and thus are trying to control for those things. But oh wait one little problem. This article is explaining why one needs to look at rates not absolute numbers. If someone is aware of sample bias why would they need this article? Are you telling me people who need the first eli5 are going to know sample bias?!?!?

by mint2 5y ago

autarch 5y ago

You can dig down and view stats by age group as well.

angelzen 5y ago

The charts offer an age breakdown. Click the "Change age group" button.

microtonal 5y ago

Another factor is that if the vaccination rate is very high, this also results in fewer deaths in the unvaccinated group, since it reduces the R factor.

hagbard_c 5y ago
This is actually debatable given that "fully" vaccinated people who get infected - a so-called 'breakthrough infection' - seem to transmit SARS2 at close to the same rate as those unvaccinated [1,2]: fully vaccinated individuals with breakthrough infections have peak viral load similar to unvaccinated cases and can efficiently transmit infection in household settings, including to fully vaccinated contacts Whether the R-factor is reduced markedly depends on the number of breakthrough infections. In this study the infection rate in household contacts exposed to the delta variant was 25% (95% CI 18–33) for fully vaccinated individuals compared with 38% (24–53) in unvaccinated individuals, i.e. the vaccinated run ⅔ of the risk of getting infected compared to the unvaccinated. Given that the vaccinated were of a younger age than the unvaccinated the actual risk reduction is likely to be even smaller than stated. [1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(21)00648-4/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3... [2] https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/fully-vaccinated-people/123378/ https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/fully-vaccinated-people...
- Yoric 5y ago
  Well, as confirmed by your [1], vaccinated people can transmit the virus during a much shorter duration. That's bound to severely decrease R among vaccinated crowds.
  - mint2 5y ago
    It’s frustrating how people cherry pick data and don’t think about important findings in their own cited sources. I’ve seen similar comments to that one so many times citing viral load being the same and always ignoring that the duration is much shorter. Their own citations undermine their point…
    - hagbard_c 5y ago
      It is even more frustrating to see the dogmatic approach to the fact that the vaccines are less effective than they were made out to be. The more this becomes clear, the harder it will be to keep up this narrative. I assume that you, just like most others here, wants to see these epidemics and the pandemic end as soon as possible with as little damage as possible? In that case it is adamant to be objective in the search for a way out. Current data shows that the vaccines which are now available don´t provide the level of protection against either infection, hospitalisation or death which they were supposed to do so an alternative strategy is needed. This can include a new vaccine - there are many in the works - but it has to include a way to keep society running without imposing authoritarian mandates or we stand to loose much more than just the people who succumbed to the disease.
      - Yoric 5y ago
        Let me see if I understand correctly your thesis (collated from several of your responses). 1. You believe/observe that the current generation of vaccines are useful. 2. You believe/observe that the current generation of vaccines are insufficient. 3. You believe/observe that many people (on HN?) have too much faith in vaccines as a silver bullet. 4. You believe/observe that the government responses (in western countries?) are authoritarian, hence politically dangerous. I imagine you mean lockdowns and the pressure towards vaccination. I am not sure whether you also mean other measures (mandatory masking, classroom shutdowns, remote work, closing down restaurants, etc.) 5. You believe/observe that the government responses (in western countries?) are inefficient or insufficient. 6. You conclude that that the government responses must change. Is that correct? I agree with you that it is an important conversation to have. Of course, I disagree with some of your points (in particular 4.), but that's life :)

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

bob_neumann 5y ago

No, the death rate in the ONS data from England is age adjusted. So among the same aged cohorts, the vaccinated are more likely to die than the unvaccinated. Almost twice as likely for the last 6 months straight.

bob_neumann 5y ago
I'm speaking specifically of the age 10 to 59 age group. For the last 6 months that age group, the vaccinated are almost twice as likely to die of any cause than the unvaccinated.
- pfg 5y ago
  That age group is too wide to make a meaningful comparison without standardising for age. Less than 10% of under-18s and less than 60% in the 18-24 age group have been fully vaccinated, whereas it's more than 80% for the 55-59 group. The unvaccinated population in that age group is significantly younger than the vaccinated population. As you would expect, older people tend to die more often. This is also mentioned in a footnote in the ONS data (and this is why they tend to focus on age-standardised figures).
  - guilhas 5y ago
    You could say the same for the covid death rate: generally saying that it is a deadly pandemic is misleading, because it disproportionately kills old and sick people, and those tend to die more often Is the average covid death rate age adjusted?
    - pfg 5y ago
      I don't understand your argument. When we're comparing "overall death rate in a world without COVID" to "death rate in a world with COVID", we're looking at the same population. We don't need to adjust for age if we're looking at the same population. This kind of misconception is so common it even has its own name: Simpson's paradox. It's laughable to think that the vaccinated population, compared to unvaccinated, is dying at the rate suggested by these numbers and no one is ringing the alarm.

repta 5y ago

Thankfully, epidemiologists around the world did not wait for mint2 on HN to realize this. All of these all-age rates are age-adjusted according to the country’s population pyramid.

sciurus 5y ago

This is one of the factors discussed at https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/math-covid-vaccinations-jeremy-mcanulty/2021/11/12/bfe89018-417f-11ec-a3aa-0255edc02eb7_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/math-covid-vaccinatio... , which is a nice overview of how innumeracy helps fuel covid misinformation.

mint2 5y ago

Wish I could edit my comment to add a statement that very sadly has been shown to have been needed. age is but one example out of many different conditions that would cause more frail people to self select. Stop replying to say one can zoom in and see age segments. And please note that the main point of the article is an ELI5 of why absolute death numbers is misleading, but that eli5 doesn’t mention the sample bias which would be a good “next layer” to mention at least in the conclusion. So yeah it’s all very fine that as so many people like to reply that a reader can dig around and find age groups assuming they already know about sample bias and thus are trying to control for those things. But oh wait one little problem. This article is explaining why one needs to look at rates not absolute numbers. If someone is aware of sample bias why would they need this article? Are you telling me people who need the first eli5 are going to know sample bias?!?!?