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Covid vaccination linked to 'substantial reduction' in hospital admissions

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Re: Covid vaccination linked to 'substantial reduction' in hospital admissions

#271

Post by NovaJehovah »

dragonwriter wrote: post #268
NovaJehovah wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's generally a political challenge for a free society to get the power and the megaphones back from the people they were given to during a crisis. After an acute terrorism threat ends, it's hard to get power back from the military and the police. In this case, it will be hard to take back power and the narrative from the public health establishment. While they perform a crucial role in our society, they will tend t…

> In this case, it will be hard to take back power and the narrative from the public health establishment. Sitting in California where county sheriffs basically comprehensively vetoed the public health establishment throughout the crisis, I don't see that likely to be a real problem.

That didn't stop thousands of businesses from being closed.

But regardless, the narrative is just as important. After some threshold of vaccine distribution, people need to be convinced that it's ok to return to normal life, and that they don't need to cower in fear in their homes or wear masks for years and years just because we haven't completely eliminated covid. There's a cost to all of this.

Re: Covid vaccination linked to 'substantial reduction' in hospital admissions

#272

Post by smileysteve »

choward wrote: post #222
aclimatt wrote: post #108

Since we're on the topic, shouldn't this (hospital admissions) be the almost singular criterion to influence public policy / restrictive measures? The line I've heard repeatedly is we're waiting for "total" herd immunity, as in ensuring almost all of a population is potentially protected from the virus. Frequently quoting fall / end of 2021, potentially into 2022. Shouldn't the only benchmark be those with medium-to-…

I agree completely. The only reason they used for shutting everything down at first was so hospitals don't get overrun. That's clearly not happening right now in most places. Also, it's not uncommon for the flu to cause hospitals to exceed capacity and we don't shut down for that.

> was so hospitals don't get overrun. That's clearly not happening right now in most places

Citation needed.

Up to 3 weeks ago, California, the Southeast were in field hospital territory.

Anecdotally, Alabama hospitals have been in overflow since July.

Georgia re-established a field hospital in January at their conference center [1] hospitalizations only stopped dropping beginning at the end of January

[1]https://www.11alive.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/geor...

Re: Covid vaccination linked to 'substantial reduction' in hospital admissions

#273

Post by CraigJPerry »

ptaipale wrote: post #247
CraigJPerry wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> approaching 15% vaccinated at over 95% efficacy means that you'll have 15% fewer cases That’s not how it works, you’re missing a variable (prevalence).

...meaning that to reduce the number of cases evenly, we'd have to choose people to vaccinate by random, but we're not doing that; we're choosing by risk, and those at higher risk of severe disease are less likely to contract an infection because they move around less and meet fewer people. However, we could speculate that perhaps we should in fact put more priority on the groups that have most infections, not highes…

>> those at higher risk of severe disease are less likely to contract an infection

If you were running a business and there was a relatively low incidence of an utterly catastrophic outcome, you’d buy insurance for the eventuality.

If you were running another business with a high occurrence of a mild outcome, you’d price it into the cost of doing business.

Insurance = vaccine. Cost of business = stimulus cheques.

Re: Covid vaccination linked to 'substantial reduction' in hospital admissions

#274

Post by ravenstine »

ghaff wrote: post #221
ravenstine wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should we have an "end"? To play devil's advocate, clearly the world can handle a certain amount of locking-down, the social distancing, the mask wearing, etc., so it seems it is better if we just accept these restrictions indefinitely because we can save more people. Maybe we're fine not having mass gatherings, not eating indoors, and not leaving the house without a mask if it means saving the vulnerable. After all,…

The vast majority of people are not fine with any of those things for an extended period. In fact, in the US, once late spring/summer roll around people are going to be out and about.

Really? That's what people said back when it was proposed that we shut everything down for a few weeks to "flatten the curve". Now look how long we've gone. I'd say Americans have very well tolerated this new way of life and could do so in perpetuity. I wouldn't count the protests and riots last summer since they were politically motivated.

Re: Covid vaccination linked to 'substantial reduction' in hospital admissions

#275

Post by InitialLastName »

swayvil wrote: post #269
InitialLastName wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely censorship, and not moderating someone making unfounded, uncited, and crudely insulting allegations.

Seeing as how he got censored, we don't know that.

They got flagged by users. We can still see what they wrote, see that it effectively willfully provided negative value to the conversation, and move on without it having to be a global conspiracy.

Re: Covid vaccination linked to 'substantial reduction' in hospital admissions

#276

Post by dragonwriter »

NovaJehovah wrote: post #271
dragonwriter wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In this case, it will be hard to take back power and the narrative from the public health establishment. Sitting in California where county sheriffs basically comprehensively vetoed the public health establishment throughout the crisis, I don't see that likely to be a real problem.

That didn't stop thousands of businesses from being closed. But regardless, the narrative is just as important. After some threshold of vaccine distribution, people need to be convinced that it's ok to return to normal life, and that they don't need to cower in fear in their homes or wear masks for years and years just because we haven't completely eliminated covid. There's a cost to all of this.

> After some threshold of vaccine distribution, people need to be convinced that it's ok to return to normal life, and that they don't need to cower in fear in their homes or wear masks for years and years.

No one has suggested people should cower in fear, and people seem pretty happy going about without masks, or with masks worn in an openly defiant manner (under the chin, off of one ear, etc.) in public places with prominent mask mandate signage today, so, again, I don't think the issue you are alluding to is even remotely serious. As a society, whatever the formal provisions of law say, we haven't given public health authorities the power in practice that you argue we will have problems with when we need to take it away.

Re: Covid vaccination linked to 'substantial reduction' in hospital admissions

#277

Post by [deleted] »

sjf wrote: post #183
wcfields wrote: post #179

I may get downvoted for this, but genuinely curious if there's vaccine tourism (not that I'm in a position to get on a jet to get a shot). Eg, if the wait time is long for my group in the US/UK/Wherever, can I book a flight to UAE or Cuba to get a vaccine at the airport?

Sure, you think the 0.1% are just waiting for their phase to rollout?

[deleted]

Re: Covid vaccination linked to 'substantial reduction' in hospital admissions

#278

Post by Veserv »

ceejayoz wrote: post #208
standardUser wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an important metric because earlier indicators aren't as useful. The rate of new cases is tricky because we don't really care if someone gets COVID-19 anymore than we care if they get the common cold, assuming they have only mild symptoms and fully recover. Hospitalizations are the first unambiguous metric we have to know there is a serious problem that may require a dramatic response.

> It's an important metric because earlier indicators aren't as useful. Sure they are. They're less precise , but they're more useful , because they're more likely to let you combat the spike before it gets out of control. It's like a smoke alarm. Maybe it's going off because it's over-sensitive and someone just took a shower... but it's a better early warning system than waiting for active flames to appear.

You use cases to determine if you need to react to stop spread since you get results faster. You use hospitalization to determine the time-lagged efficacy of your interventions since it is more precise. What is more useful depends on what you are trying to get out of it. In this particular case, we are discussing the efficacy of vaccination and how that might influence restriction lifting, so you want to err on the side of caution and accuracy and use hospitalization.

Re: Covid vaccination linked to 'substantial reduction' in hospital admissions

#279

Post by foolmeonce »

woeirua wrote: post #220
foolmeonce wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like cherry picking to me. Doctors know if you have been vaccinated when making this decision. I.e. perhaps 90% of people with 1 dose who are admitted are serious enough to need intensive care vs a small percentage of non-vaccinated patients admitted more often as a precaution. I guess everyone here thinks double blind trials are for fools?

I think the clinical guidance is still the same, that is you get admitted when you are showing certain symptoms regardless of vaccination status.

DanBC seems to have posted the study itself:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/phe-monitoring-of...

cases:mortality would be a weebit less influenced by placebo and it would be hard to reach numbers like 80%..

IMO, there's no way a significant number of discussions between doctor and patient are not going to reach different conclusions about whether to go to check in to a hospital or wait a few more days based on a significant fact like a jab 3 weeks ago.

So I'd have to say this is cherry picking..

Re: Covid vaccination linked to 'substantial reduction' in hospital admissions

#280

Post by gjs278 »

smileysteve wrote: post #272
choward wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree completely. The only reason they used for shutting everything down at first was so hospitals don't get overrun. That's clearly not happening right now in most places. Also, it's not uncommon for the flu to cause hospitals to exceed capacity and we don't shut down for that.

> was so hospitals don't get overrun. That's clearly not happening right now in most places Citation needed. Up to 3 weeks ago, California, the Southeast were in field hospital territory. Anecdotally, Alabama hospitals have been in overflow since July. Georgia re-established a field hospital in January at their conference center [1] hospitalizations only stopped dropping beginning at the end of January [1] https://ww…

cite yourself. california was not in field hospital territory, ever. there was a ship that was docked here to take excess patients and it took 77 total patients and the left. and considering half of the hospitals capacity were closed, they could have easily used that space.
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