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A grim warning from Israel: Vaccination blunts, but does not defeat Delta

science.org

1–10 of 102 posts

Re: A grim warning from Israel: Vaccination blunts, but does not defeat Delta

#2
This article never really tackles the fact that p(infected|vaccinated) != p(vaccinated|infected). With high-vaccination rates in Israel, that matters a lot.

In fact, the scariest statistic it gives--that nearly 60% of serious hospitalizations are fully vaccinated) gives the p(vaccinated|infected), not p(infected|vaccinated).

Trivially, and to make the point, if 100% of people are vaccinated, then 100% of hospitalizations will be among the vaccinated--which tells you almost nothing about how likely it is to be hospitalized when vaccinated (beyond that its nonzero).

An embarrassing failure for science.org

Re: A grim warning from Israel: Vaccination blunts, but does not defeat Delta

#4

This article never really tackles the fact that p(infected|vaccinated) != p(vaccinated|infected). With high-vaccination rates in Israel, that matters a lot. In fact, the scariest statistic it gives--that nearly 60% of serious hospitalizations are fully vaccinated) gives the p(vaccinated|infected), not p(infected|vaccinated). Trivially, and to make the point, if 100% of people are vaccinated, then 100% of hospitalizat…

p(i|v) = ( p(v|i) * p(i) ) / p(v)

  p(v|i) = 0.6
  p(v) = 0.6
  p(i) = ?; but it's high (record case counts)
  p(i|v) = p(i); high
If Israel has a 60% vaccination rate, and 60% of those in the hospital are vaccinated, then doesn't this mean the vaccine has no effect on the chances of being hospitalized?

Re: A grim warning from Israel: Vaccination blunts, but does not defeat Delta

#5

I keep hearing that Covid is never going away (see recent Atlantic article). How is it surprising when vaccines designed to prevent hospitalization don't prevent infection.

I imagine that it does make infection less likely, and make the likelihood of passing it on less likely too. I mean, most of the research on it says exactly that. But nothing is perfect.

Re: A grim warning from Israel: Vaccination blunts, but does not defeat Delta

#6
78% vaccination, more than half of new are breakthrough, i.e. the vaccinated chances to get infected is more than 28% of that of unvaccinated. Similar numbers to MA https://www.bostonherald.com/2021/08/31/massachusetts-report... - 65% vaccination rate - out of the 1144 current average new daily infections the 500+ are breakthrough, ie. the chances are 40%. The data is probably skewed by the fact that vaccines smooth the symptoms and thus the breakthroughs are probably much more undercounted.

Re: A grim warning from Israel: Vaccination blunts, but does not defeat Delta

#7

This article never really tackles the fact that p(infected|vaccinated) != p(vaccinated|infected). With high-vaccination rates in Israel, that matters a lot. In fact, the scariest statistic it gives--that nearly 60% of serious hospitalizations are fully vaccinated) gives the p(vaccinated|infected), not p(infected|vaccinated). Trivially, and to make the point, if 100% of people are vaccinated, then 100% of hospitalizat…

Exactly the same as “x% of automobile deaths were not using the safety belt”… What happens when everybody uses it?

Re: A grim warning from Israel: Vaccination blunts, but does not defeat Delta

#8

This article never really tackles the fact that p(infected|vaccinated) != p(vaccinated|infected). With high-vaccination rates in Israel, that matters a lot. In fact, the scariest statistic it gives--that nearly 60% of serious hospitalizations are fully vaccinated) gives the p(vaccinated|infected), not p(infected|vaccinated). Trivially, and to make the point, if 100% of people are vaccinated, then 100% of hospitalizat…

p(i|v) = ( p(v|i) * p(i) ) / p(v) p(v|i) = 0.6 p(v) = 0.6 p(i) = ?; but it's high (record case counts) p(i|v) = p(i); high If Israel has a 60% vaccination rate, and 60% of those in the hospital are vaccinated, then doesn't this mean the vaccine has no effect on the chances of being hospitalized?

No, because you assume that a 10 year old has an equal probability of being hospitalised as a 90 year old (for example).

Israel has a low overall vaccination rate because they have a very young population.

If you restrict the sample to just >50 year olds (majority of hospitalisations), then both statistics look very different.

Re: A grim warning from Israel: Vaccination blunts, but does not defeat Delta

#9
I don't think the vaccine is creating a strong memory cell response.

The vaccine is probably just ramping up the immune system response for a few months. That alone would prevent death and since we don't really have anything else, it's still better than nothing.

Re: A grim warning from Israel: Vaccination blunts, but does not defeat Delta

#10

This article never really tackles the fact that p(infected|vaccinated) != p(vaccinated|infected). With high-vaccination rates in Israel, that matters a lot. In fact, the scariest statistic it gives--that nearly 60% of serious hospitalizations are fully vaccinated) gives the p(vaccinated|infected), not p(infected|vaccinated). Trivially, and to make the point, if 100% of people are vaccinated, then 100% of hospitalizat…

The calculations running over hospitalization numbers tend to show that vaccines are ~85% effective in preventing hospitalization, usually by showing the reduction in N/100k cases.
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