3 ms·

> That was the theory, but it is not being borne out by the actual data. See below. I'm not sure where you're pointing "below", but I've read a lot of papers a

by mlyle 5y ago

> That was the theory, but it is not being borne out by the actual data. See below. I'm not sure where you're pointing "below", but I've read a lot of papers and titrations of neutralization across many variants of different subpopulations. > The data coming out of the UK and Israel does not support this claim. Their populations are already vaccinated and boosted at percentages much higher than those in the US, but those vaccinated and boosted people are still getting infected and are still being hospitalized and dying in significant numbers. Israel's had about half the COVID death per capita of the US in 2022, and is probably better at reporting deaths as COVID-related. The UK has about 65%. Boosted subpopulations have fared much better within all of these 3 jurisdictions than the population at large.

greenyoda 5y ago
> I'm not sure where you're pointing "below" This earlier comment, maybe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30973197 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30973197
pdonis 5y ago
> I'm not sure where you're pointing "below" The latter part of my post.
pdonis 5y ago
> Boosted subpopulations have fared much better within all of these 3 jurisdictions than the population at large. Not lately, according to the data the UK has been reporting. The UK has about 90% of its population vaccinated with at least one dose, and about 70% of its population have had boosters. In last week's UK report, nearly 90% of the new COVID hospitalizations were vaccinated people, and over 90% of the COVID deaths. And 87% of the new COVID hospitalizations and 78% of the COVID deaths were boosted people. When the percentages of hospitalizations and deaths of people in a given category are equal to, or greater than, the percentage of people in that category in the population at large, we would not normally say that category of people has "fared better than the population at large". Of course, as of this week, the UK will stop providing the data that I have just described. So we won't be able to see how these various populations continue to fare. That doesn't look to me like a government that is confident in the benefits of vaccines.
- mlyle 5y ago
  > Not lately, according to the data the UK has been reporting Original research or are you repeating the well-known debunked tripe despite knowing better? The unadjusted rates in population subgroups are in table 14. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1066759/Vaccine-surveillance-report-week-13.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/... Every single age subgroup has a significantly lower risk of death when vaccinated. The risk of hospitalization is also lower, but less dramatically. This is despite cases being recorded in the vaccinated at a higher rate over this interval (which is probably an artifact of the data rather than being real). If you look at the raw sum without considering the subgroups, your number is confounded by the fact that the vast majority of the deaths are in people 80+, who are also vaccinated at a higher rate than the general population. This is about the best known statistical "paradox" that there is-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox Another confound is that we really don't know the number of unvaccinated people. Counting errors get magnified. If you think you have 1M people in a locality, and you know you have vaccinated 930,000 people... you get a huge swing in rates if you actually have 980k vs 1020k people.
  - pdonis 5y ago
    > Original research or are you repeating the well-known debunked tripe despite knowing better? No, I'm looking at pp. 42 and 44 of the report you linked to. > If you look at the raw sum without considering the subgroups, your number is confounded by the fact that the vast majority of the deaths are in people 80+, who are also vaccinated at a higher rate than the general population. Actually, the figures I gave for percentages of new hospitalizations and deaths were for people 80+. (I had misread the tables thinking that that row was totals.) You are correct that the vaccination percentages for this age group are higher than for the general population, but they're still about the same as the percentages of new hospitalizations and deaths for this population. I have not tried to check the rates given in table 14 based on the numbers in the previous tables. > Another confound is that we really don't know the number of unvaccinated people. The report you linked to seems to be pretty confident in the percentages it gives of vaccinated people. That implies that the UK government believes it has accurate counts of the total population (or at least accurate enough that any uncertainty in the count doesn't significantly affect the rates they are showing).

by mlyle 5y ago

greenyoda 5y ago

> I'm not sure where you're pointing "below" This earlier comment, maybe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30973197 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30973197

pdonis 5y ago

> I'm not sure where you're pointing "below" The latter part of my post.

pdonis 5y ago

> Boosted subpopulations have fared much better within all of these 3 jurisdictions than the population at large. Not lately, according to the data the UK has been reporting. The UK has about 90% of its population vaccinated with at least one dose, and about 70% of its population have had boosters. In last week's UK report, nearly 90% of the new COVID hospitalizations were vaccinated people, and over 90% of the COVID deaths. And 87% of the new COVID hospitalizations and 78% of the COVID deaths were boosted people. When the percentages of hospitalizations and deaths of people in a given category are equal to, or greater than, the percentage of people in that category in the population at large, we would not normally say that category of people has "fared better than the population at large". Of course, as of this week, the UK will stop providing the data that I have just described. So we won't be able to see how these various populations continue to fare. That doesn't look to me like a government that is confident in the benefits of vaccines.

mlyle 5y ago
> Not lately, according to the data the UK has been reporting Original research or are you repeating the well-known debunked tripe despite knowing better? The unadjusted rates in population subgroups are in table 14. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1066759/Vaccine-surveillance-report-week-13.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/... Every single age subgroup has a significantly lower risk of death when vaccinated. The risk of hospitalization is also lower, but less dramatically. This is despite cases being recorded in the vaccinated at a higher rate over this interval (which is probably an artifact of the data rather than being real). If you look at the raw sum without considering the subgroups, your number is confounded by the fact that the vast majority of the deaths are in people 80+, who are also vaccinated at a higher rate than the general population. This is about the best known statistical "paradox" that there is-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox Another confound is that we really don't know the number of unvaccinated people. Counting errors get magnified. If you think you have 1M people in a locality, and you know you have vaccinated 930,000 people... you get a huge swing in rates if you actually have 980k vs 1020k people.
- pdonis 5y ago
  > Original research or are you repeating the well-known debunked tripe despite knowing better? No, I'm looking at pp. 42 and 44 of the report you linked to. > If you look at the raw sum without considering the subgroups, your number is confounded by the fact that the vast majority of the deaths are in people 80+, who are also vaccinated at a higher rate than the general population. Actually, the figures I gave for percentages of new hospitalizations and deaths were for people 80+. (I had misread the tables thinking that that row was totals.) You are correct that the vaccination percentages for this age group are higher than for the general population, but they're still about the same as the percentages of new hospitalizations and deaths for this population. I have not tried to check the rates given in table 14 based on the numbers in the previous tables. > Another confound is that we really don't know the number of unvaccinated people. The report you linked to seems to be pretty confident in the percentages it gives of vaccinated people. That implies that the UK government believes it has accurate counts of the total population (or at least accurate enough that any uncertainty in the count doesn't significantly affect the rates they are showing).