5 ms·

Hospitalization and death numbers are definitely directly connected to how long its been since you got your shot. So for now, it does not seem like the whole lo

by shmatt 5y ago

Hospitalization and death numbers are definitely directly connected to how long its been since you got your shot. So for now, it does not seem like the whole long immunity/T-B-cell thing is happening with Pfizer/Moderna/J&J at least There is a very real per month affect, every month after your latest mRNA shot, your chances of getting seriously sick get a little bigger. After 6 months they get so big that scientists concluded its time for a booster. Now we wait and see, but so far things seem to be trending in the same direction, in Israel at least (so, no Moderna or J&J). Its not that we are only measuring titers. Its that vaccinated people are suddenly dying. So there seems to be no or very low memory to making more titers Then, people get a booster, and boom, 90% lower chance of death again with high titers https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2114228 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2114228 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abm0620 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abm0620 The veteran research which had 800,000 participants showed terrible long term results for J&J

nullc 5y ago
> Hospitalization and death numbers are definitely directly connected There has never been a RCT which showed covid vaccination reduces mortality. I believe they do but this has not been rigorously shown. Unfortunately, even though we've had gigantic RCTs on covid none of them showed statistically significant covid-mortality in the unvaccinated population (potentially due to prescreening eliminating people who were at risk of dying), so they weren't able to show any improvement. Numbers from the population have been suggestive, but unfortunately you can get the same graphs -- an initial spike of reduced mortality with a pronounced fall off in effectiveness -- from a simulation where the vaccine has no effect on mortality at all. The reason for this is that our stats on the public measure time lagged mortality against current vaccination numbers. People reported dead today actually died a week before and got sick two weeks before that. When the increase in new vaccination is high, you will overestimate the size of the population for the people who died and falsely think the vaccine is more effective than it is. And you end up with your 'per month effect' -- the same statistical error will make the cycle nicely repeat with boosters due to the same population size error for the newly boosted population. This is the sort of bias that is structurally eliminated in RCT design and hard to avoid in population monitoring.
- swader999 5y ago
  We need all-cause mortality stats from vaccinated vs non vaccinated populations but they won't give us these without fighting for it. For instance, Pfizer's all cause data from their initial trial was higher in the vaccinated group. So they then went and vaccinated the control group thus destroying any chance of long term study in this population.
- TechBro8615 5y ago
  If anyone wants more details, I assume you’re referencing this recent blog. If you haven’t seen this, you’ll love it because it makes the same argument: https://probabilityandlaw.blogspot.com/2021/12/possible-systematic-miscategorisation.html https://probabilityandlaw.blogspot.com/2021/12/possible-syst...
  - nullc 5y ago
    Hadn't seen that! but, indeed, it's the same point.
- oezi 5y ago
  The good thing is you don't need a RCT to see that vaccines are effective against mortality. For this you just have to talk to any clinician who is witnessing this winter wave and let them tell you about the difference in age profile of people on the ICU. Or you look at incidence and observe that with even higher incidence than last year, we do have reduced mortality overall.
- bigodbiel 5y ago
  This is a Human Challenge Trial: have vaccinated participants exposed to either covid or placebo (rhinovirus)! There are heavy ethical dilemmas here, even when using young and healthy candidates. IIRC there was one Human Challenge Study being run in the UK, though they've been awfully quiet for months.

by shmatt 5y ago

nullc 5y ago

> Hospitalization and death numbers are definitely directly connected There has never been a RCT which showed covid vaccination reduces mortality. I believe they do but this has not been rigorously shown. Unfortunately, even though we've had gigantic RCTs on covid none of them showed statistically significant covid-mortality in the unvaccinated population (potentially due to prescreening eliminating people who were at risk of dying), so they weren't able to show any improvement. Numbers from the population have been suggestive, but unfortunately you can get the same graphs -- an initial spike of reduced mortality with a pronounced fall off in effectiveness -- from a simulation where the vaccine has no effect on mortality at all. The reason for this is that our stats on the public measure time lagged mortality against current vaccination numbers. People reported dead today actually died a week before and got sick two weeks before that. When the increase in new vaccination is high, you will overestimate the size of the population for the people who died and falsely think the vaccine is more effective than it is. And you end up with your 'per month effect' -- the same statistical error will make the cycle nicely repeat with boosters due to the same population size error for the newly boosted population. This is the sort of bias that is structurally eliminated in RCT design and hard to avoid in population monitoring.

swader999 5y ago
We need all-cause mortality stats from vaccinated vs non vaccinated populations but they won't give us these without fighting for it. For instance, Pfizer's all cause data from their initial trial was higher in the vaccinated group. So they then went and vaccinated the control group thus destroying any chance of long term study in this population.
TechBro8615 5y ago
If anyone wants more details, I assume you’re referencing this recent blog. If you haven’t seen this, you’ll love it because it makes the same argument: https://probabilityandlaw.blogspot.com/2021/12/possible-systematic-miscategorisation.html https://probabilityandlaw.blogspot.com/2021/12/possible-syst...
- nullc 5y ago
  Hadn't seen that! but, indeed, it's the same point.
oezi 5y ago
The good thing is you don't need a RCT to see that vaccines are effective against mortality. For this you just have to talk to any clinician who is witnessing this winter wave and let them tell you about the difference in age profile of people on the ICU. Or you look at incidence and observe that with even higher incidence than last year, we do have reduced mortality overall.
bigodbiel 5y ago
This is a Human Challenge Trial: have vaccinated participants exposed to either covid or placebo (rhinovirus)! There are heavy ethical dilemmas here, even when using young and healthy candidates. IIRC there was one Human Challenge Study being run in the UK, though they've been awfully quiet for months.