Highly Vaccinated Israel Is Seeing a Dramatic Surge in New Covid Cases • Hacker News Board

Re: Highly Vaccinated Israel Is Seeing a Dramatic Surge in New Covid Cases

#91

Post by gnabgib » Sun, Aug 22, 2021, 12:46 AM UTC

linuxhansl wrote: post #85

tracyhenry wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will get downvoted... but really, 60% of the hospitalizations come from vaccinated population, does that really count as "incredibly effective"? Is that really what people were hoping for when Pfizer & Moderna announced 94%+ effectiveness?

If 100% of all people are vaccinated that 100% of all hospitalization would be from vaccinated people. That says nothing about effectiveness of the vaccines. 78.8% of the population we're talking about here are vaccinated.

58% from TFA, or [62.84% currently](https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations)

Re: Highly Vaccinated Israel Is Seeing a Dramatic Surge in New Covid Cases

#92

Post by hn_throwaway_99 » Sun, Aug 22, 2021, 12:46 AM UTC

markdown wrote: post #46

rubicon33 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's still concerning that 60% of hospitalizations are vaccinated patients. Even if 79% of the population is vaccinated.

Best case, the Pfizer vaccine is 95% effective at preventing serious illness and death. This has been known since the beginning. If you vaccinate 100% of the total population, you'll find that 100% of hospitalised and dead patients have been fully vaccinated. TL;DR: This is only concerning if one doesn't properly grasp statistics. Most of us (self included) fail at this.

I do properly grasp statistics, and your conclusion is unwarranted. If 79% of people are vaccinated, then if hypothetically 79% of the hospitalized people were vaccinated, it would mean the vaccine had absolutely 0% effectiveness.

The fact that only 60% of the hospitalized are vaccinated means the vaccine is more effective than nothing (and the data on death is even better), but as time goes on it becomes clearer the vaccines are not the silver bullet many of us thought they would be.

Re: Highly Vaccinated Israel Is Seeing a Dramatic Surge in New Covid Cases

#93

Post by lucb1e » Sun, Aug 22, 2021, 12:47 AM UTC

hammock wrote: post #41

There is more than vaccinated vs unvaccinated. There is also naturally acquired immunity. The best available science points to many interesting things you may not be aware of: "Israelis who were vaccinated were 6.72 times more likely to get infected after the shot than after natural infection". https://archive.is/RlwBc "Researchers from Washington University in St. Louis also reported last month that 11 months after…

Regarding the Cleveland Clinic link, a random one I picked out to verify, the confidence is actually very low, or more specifically, the statistic most relevant to your quote has a 95% confidence interval of zero and infinity:

> vaccination was associated with a significantly lower risk [...] but not among those previously infected (HR 0.313, 95% CI 0 to Infinity)

I'm no mathematician or statistician, but that sounds like the conclusion should have been that no reliable recommendation can be formulated without more data.

Regarding your chosen quote specifically, there the sentence continues and says

> vaccines can be safely prioritized to those who have not been infected before.

The keyword being "prioritized"; not that they don't recommend vaccinations if you already lived through COVID-19, which (to me) your comment is suggestive of.

Don't know about the rest, I don't have time to check them all out now. Hopefully someone else has more time to properly look at this because your suggestion goes against what most countries are currently implementing so that's interesting.

Re: Highly Vaccinated Israel Is Seeing a Dramatic Surge in New Covid Cases

#94

Post by tracyhenry » Sun, Aug 22, 2021, 12:56 AM UTC

belltaco wrote: post #87

tracyhenry wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say that the vaccine isn't effective. I'm saying this is nowhere near "incredibly effective". The post you cited is helpful. However, it is confusing the definition of efficacy. There were debates on what the efficacy meant when Pfizer and Moderna reported their high numbers. But there was *NO* definition saying that 94% efficacy means 94% of vaccinated people won't get SERIOUSLY sick. Most commonly, it mean…

Both [1] and [2] predate Delta so I don't know what you're on about. Not to mention recently discovered waning immunity. So [1] and [2] could definitely have been true at the time.

Did the root comment say this is "INCREDIBLY" effective before Delta? Why is it so hard to understand what I'm trying to convey here? It's not "INCREDIBLY" effective now.

Now waning immunity - did Pfizer or Moderna warn the world about it? Did they warn us about potential variants? Absolutely no, right? They posted the high numbers to pump their stock price. Vaccines are effective to some extent. But those two companies are not credible.

Re: Highly Vaccinated Israel Is Seeing a Dramatic Surge in New Covid Cases

#95

Post by mthoms » Sun, Aug 22, 2021, 12:59 AM UTC

charbonneau wrote: post #80

mthoms wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the rate of serious cases among unvaccinated people over age 60 (178.7 per 100,000) was nine times more than the rate among fully vaccinated people of the same age category, and the rate of serious cases among unvaccinated people in the under-60 crowd (3.2 per 100,000) was a little more than double the rate among vaccinated people in that age bracket. From the article. Emphasis is mine.

The question is: What's the difference between un-/vaccinated people >60? Why aren't they vaccinated? Different opinions? Health-related reasons? Without this information, it's tough to draw conclusions.

Why would their opinions matter?

As for health, I think you might be alluding to pre-existing conditions? Can you elaborate on how you would see this affecting the result?

Re: Highly Vaccinated Israel Is Seeing a Dramatic Surge in New Covid Cases

#96

Post by lucb1e » Sun, Aug 22, 2021, 1:02 AM UTC

belter wrote: post #76

somewhereoutth wrote: post #71

Depressing to read all the anti-vax and pro-Covid comments on this generally enlightened forum while much of the healthcare system of the southern US is being overwhelmed by un-vaccinated Covid patients.

I am not arguing against vaccination or saying you dont have a valid concern. But I think we need to also make sense of scenarios like for example India. Has only 9.2% of fully vaccinated and if you look at the daily infection rates it dropped dramatically. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/india-covid-c...

I've stopped trying to attribute infection rates to other statistics, especially individual ones. There seems to be very little rhyme or reason to the incidence. Sometimes there is a very clear mistake made, like in the Netherlands they opened up night clubs and bars and suddenly we had the fastest-growing wave so far and anyone outside of 15-25 years old wasn't even participating. But most of the time it's really not so clear what is causing or preventing infections without rigorous research. At a minimum, one should also be looking at test rates and incentives to not get tested (needing to go into quarantine iirc in many countries, having to pay €40 just for a single low-quality nose test as of Oct 1st in the Netherlands, those sorts of things), since merely the incidence does not tell the full story. Then there are weather changes (temperature, humidity, time spent meeting others indoors vs. outdoors), avoidance of close contact or travel, face mask requirements, adherence to rules and recommendations, etc.

Re: Highly Vaccinated Israel Is Seeing a Dramatic Surge in New Covid Cases

#97

Post by belltaco » Sun, Aug 22, 2021, 1:09 AM UTC

hammock wrote: post #72

somewhereoutth wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By natural immunity I think you meant to say disease induced immunity. Just to be clear about what that actually entails.

That is true. I know many people who had to endure several days of no taste/smell and a cough in order to get it.

And more than 5 million around the world who died trying to get it?

Re: Highly Vaccinated Israel Is Seeing a Dramatic Surge in New Covid Cases

#98

Post by jayd16 » Sun, Aug 22, 2021, 1:14 AM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #92

markdown wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Best case, the Pfizer vaccine is 95% effective at preventing serious illness and death. This has been known since the beginning. If you vaccinate 100% of the total population, you'll find that 100% of hospitalised and dead patients have been fully vaccinated. TL;DR: This is only concerning if one doesn't properly grasp statistics. Most of us (self included) fail at this.

I do properly grasp statistics, and your conclusion is unwarranted. If 79% of people are vaccinated, then if hypothetically 79% of the hospitalized people were vaccinated, it would mean the vaccine had absolutely 0% effectiveness. The fact that only 60% of the hospitalized are vaccinated means the vaccine is more effective than nothing (and the data on death is even better), but as time goes on it becomes clearer the…

> If 79% of people are vaccinated, then if hypothetically 79% of the hospitalized people were vaccinated, it would mean the vaccine had absolutely 0% effectiveness.

Incorrect. The vaccinations are targeted at the most vulnerable not distributed uniformly so this is not exactly right.

Re: Highly Vaccinated Israel Is Seeing a Dramatic Surge in New Covid Cases

#99

Post by ajkdhcb2 » Sun, Aug 22, 2021, 1:39 AM UTC

It seems the vaccine does little to prevent vaccinated people from spreading the virus. So what is the point of vaccine passports, is that based on outdated data? Preventing serious injury seems unrelated to this question; it seems the unvaccinated are only putting themselves at risk.

Re: Highly Vaccinated Israel Is Seeing a Dramatic Surge in New Covid Cases

#100

Post by ikerdanzel » Sun, Aug 22, 2021, 2:43 AM UTC

tracyhenry wrote: post #81

singhrac wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In addition to the clear example of Simpson’s paradox presented here: https://www.covid-datascience.com/post/israeli-data-how-can-... , I offer you the following intuition: if only 4 people in Israel were unvaccinated and 2 were in the hospital with 2 vaccinated patients, would you consider the vaccine effective? It’s important to look at the right numbers.

I didn't say that the vaccine isn't effective. I'm saying this is nowhere near "incredibly effective". The post you cited is helpful. However, it is confusing the definition of efficacy. There were debates on what the efficacy meant when Pfizer and Moderna reported their high numbers. But there was *NO* definition saying that 94% efficacy means 94% of vaccinated people won't get SERIOUSLY sick. Most commonly, it mean…

Pro-vaxxer will not answer your original question. The fact is it is not incredibly effective now as Pfizer and Moderna effectiveness have drop to 70%+ and 40%+ respectively from their earlier 95%. 60% are hospitalize that means it is severe that warrant hospitalization. If it is incredibly effective, "hospitalization" for vaccinated should be under a few percentage point. Take a look at historical smallpox and polio vaccination. Now that is incredible effective. Vast majority of pro-vaxxer aren't aware of old stats, while predominantly getting over excited by media outlet or their less informed doctors acquintances. To be fair, those vaccines originally targeting earlier variant of Covid. Now you have Delta, likely Delta+ and Lambda or some more deadlier version of variants, the vaccine can only go down in effectiveness in coming 6mths. In fact, you should be hearing people getting those vaccines died due to immunity waning in coming 6mths. Expect booster shots and annual jabs just like flu shots.