4 ms·

> Booster doses cut the risk of infection in vaccinated people by about half across all age groups. I’m not convinced the story actually says what the title cl

by mewse 5y ago

> Booster doses cut the risk of infection in vaccinated people by about half across all age groups. I’m not convinced the story actually says what the title claims it does.

tedunangst 5y ago
Journalism and statistics, oil and water.
- akomtu 5y ago
  I'd even say journalists don't understand statistics. Without proper math education, they see stats as a game of numbers where the goal is to pick the right numbers to support a desired conclusion. I can't seriously expect a journalist to understand what "2 sigma" means, and even less likely they'd be willing to learn the difference between gaussian and poisson distributions.
  - nkurz 5y ago
    Certainly some journalists don't understand basic statistics, but counter to your insinuation, I'd guess the author of this piece does. Among other degrees, she has a Masters of Science in Biochemistry from UW-Madison: https://www.nytimes.com/by/apoorva-mandavilli https://www.nytimes.com/by/apoorva-mandavilli. Rather than lowering the standards and expectations for science journalists, I think we should raise them, and applaud the people like this who (likely) do understand what they are writing about.
    - tedunangst 5y ago
      Even when the author understands the topic, the challenge is writing an article such that the reader reaches the same conclusion.
QuercusMax 5y ago
The title may be correct, if you look at the absolute difference instead of the relative difference. Making up numbers here, but if 10 out of 100 unvaxed people get sick among the elderly, and 6 out of 100 unvaxed get sick among younger folks, then the vaccine "helps" 5 elderly but only 3 younger folks. But I agree with you that it's certainly misleading.
josephcsible 5y ago
If infection is less harmful to younger people, less likely in younger people, or both, then cutting the risk of infection by half across all age groups is less beneficial to younger people.
- Moto7451 5y ago
  I see a benefit to not getting sick. Even when it won’t kill you, catching a cold sucks. I have no concern that I’m going to die of Covid but I’ll happily get a booster to avoid getting sick. My sisters caught Omicron days before their boosters were available and they missed ten days of University and work. The booster doesn’t guarantee you won’t get a breakthrough but every bit helps. I will offer though that if we’re not seeing a massive public health benefit, as opposed to an individual health benefit, that should factor into how many doses you need when they create vaccination requirements. I don’t think a double dosed 20 year old should be told they can’t eat inside if their risk of death or hospitalization is less than a triple vaccinated 65 year old.
polote 5y ago
- smt88 5y ago
  The risk is not zero. Also, lots of younger Americans have at-risk relatives, teachers, coaches, taxi drivers, coworkers, etc. Even if they're not worried for themselves, many of them care about their risk to loved ones and acquaintances.
  - nxm 5y ago
    Then those loved ones should vaccine themselves. Time to move on with the virus, as countries in Europe, and even Bill Maher, is realizing
xboxnolifes 5y ago
Depends how you look at it: relatives or absolutes. If the infection risk of an 18 year old is 10%, half is 5%. If the infection risk of a 70 year old is 40%, half is 20%. In absolute terms, the younger age group benefits less. This, however, is obvious based on all information we've known since almost the start of the pandemic, and is not useful at all. Even if younger people stopped getting infected with these numbers, they could never have similar benefit compared to the older cohort. These titles are designed to get clicks, but they are very "dangerous", for a lack of a better word, because of how often the title will be shared without reading and understanding.
yuliyp 5y ago
The story continued to talk about hospitalization and death rates in people with a standard vaccine course vs also having a booster (units in instances / 100,000 people): 65+ hospitalization: 27.4 -> 4.9 (-82%) 65+ death: 3.6 -> 0.5 (-86%) 50-64 hospitalization: 9 -> 2 (-78%) 50-64 death: 0.4 -> 0.1 (-75%) They did not break down the 18-49 hospitalization stats, presumably because they are even lower than the 50-64 group (according to the CDC stats linked from the article, < 5 people / 100k in the vaccinated 18-49 group were hospitalized due to COVID-19 in December, and < 1 person / 100k across all 18-49 died from COVID-19, and that number is well under 1 in a million per week for regularly vaccinated, meaning stats are going to be fairly noisy).

by mewse 5y ago

> Booster doses cut the risk of infection in vaccinated people by about half across all age groups. I’m not convinced the story actually says what the title claims it does.

tedunangst 5y ago

Journalism and statistics, oil and water.

akomtu 5y ago
I'd even say journalists don't understand statistics. Without proper math education, they see stats as a game of numbers where the goal is to pick the right numbers to support a desired conclusion. I can't seriously expect a journalist to understand what "2 sigma" means, and even less likely they'd be willing to learn the difference between gaussian and poisson distributions.
- nkurz 5y ago
  Certainly some journalists don't understand basic statistics, but counter to your insinuation, I'd guess the author of this piece does. Among other degrees, she has a Masters of Science in Biochemistry from UW-Madison: https://www.nytimes.com/by/apoorva-mandavilli https://www.nytimes.com/by/apoorva-mandavilli. Rather than lowering the standards and expectations for science journalists, I think we should raise them, and applaud the people like this who (likely) do understand what they are writing about.
  - tedunangst 5y ago
    Even when the author understands the topic, the challenge is writing an article such that the reader reaches the same conclusion.

QuercusMax 5y ago

The title may be correct, if you look at the absolute difference instead of the relative difference. Making up numbers here, but if 10 out of 100 unvaxed people get sick among the elderly, and 6 out of 100 unvaxed get sick among younger folks, then the vaccine "helps" 5 elderly but only 3 younger folks. But I agree with you that it's certainly misleading.

josephcsible 5y ago

If infection is less harmful to younger people, less likely in younger people, or both, then cutting the risk of infection by half across all age groups is less beneficial to younger people.

Moto7451 5y ago
I see a benefit to not getting sick. Even when it won’t kill you, catching a cold sucks. I have no concern that I’m going to die of Covid but I’ll happily get a booster to avoid getting sick. My sisters caught Omicron days before their boosters were available and they missed ten days of University and work. The booster doesn’t guarantee you won’t get a breakthrough but every bit helps. I will offer though that if we’re not seeing a massive public health benefit, as opposed to an individual health benefit, that should factor into how many doses you need when they create vaccination requirements. I don’t think a double dosed 20 year old should be told they can’t eat inside if their risk of death or hospitalization is less than a triple vaccinated 65 year old.

polote 5y ago

smt88 5y ago
The risk is not zero. Also, lots of younger Americans have at-risk relatives, teachers, coaches, taxi drivers, coworkers, etc. Even if they're not worried for themselves, many of them care about their risk to loved ones and acquaintances.
- nxm 5y ago
  Then those loved ones should vaccine themselves. Time to move on with the virus, as countries in Europe, and even Bill Maher, is realizing

xboxnolifes 5y ago

Depends how you look at it: relatives or absolutes. If the infection risk of an 18 year old is 10%, half is 5%. If the infection risk of a 70 year old is 40%, half is 20%. In absolute terms, the younger age group benefits less. This, however, is obvious based on all information we've known since almost the start of the pandemic, and is not useful at all. Even if younger people stopped getting infected with these numbers, they could never have similar benefit compared to the older cohort. These titles are designed to get clicks, but they are very "dangerous", for a lack of a better word, because of how often the title will be shared without reading and understanding.

yuliyp 5y ago

The story continued to talk about hospitalization and death rates in people with a standard vaccine course vs also having a booster (units in instances / 100,000 people): 65+ hospitalization: 27.4 -> 4.9 (-82%) 65+ death: 3.6 -> 0.5 (-86%) 50-64 hospitalization: 9 -> 2 (-78%) 50-64 death: 0.4 -> 0.1 (-75%) They did not break down the 18-49 hospitalization stats, presumably because they are even lower than the 50-64 group (according to the CDC stats linked from the article, < 5 people / 100k in the vaccinated 18-49 group were hospitalized due to COVID-19 in December, and < 1 person / 100k across all 18-49 died from COVID-19, and that number is well under 1 in a million per week for regularly vaccinated, meaning stats are going to be fairly noisy).