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

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

#31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Well, the article says 78% of people 12 yo and older are vaccinated in Israel. Not sure what percent if you drop it to include everyone. 87% of those who were hospitalized were 60 or older (which doesn't match the general population). I imagine that vaccination rates are much much higher than 60% among those over 60. In the US its around 80%. But also, hospitalizations are much more likely the older you get. Moreover…

Yeah, I got the overall vaccination rate from Google (60%), but as you say, the differences in age groups matter.

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

#32

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.

Flu was the perfect crisis hiding right under our noses. Variants have been circulating throughout the population causing a high number of deaths for all of modern history. Now that we’ve encountered a somewhat more deadly and contagious version than normal and the “danger” of this version has been super hyped, we’re quite sensitive to all flu related news, all flu variants, all flu deaths, etc. Confirmation bias at…

> somewhat more deadly

A magnitude more deadly. Flu's death rate is ~.1%, Covid's is about 2-3%.

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

#33

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.

Flu was the perfect crisis hiding right under our noses. Variants have been circulating throughout the population causing a high number of deaths for all of modern history. Now that we’ve encountered a somewhat more deadly and contagious version than normal and the “danger” of this version has been super hyped, we’re quite sensitive to all flu related news, all flu variants, all flu deaths, etc. Confirmation bias at…

Even if actual flu related deaths reverted to a pre-2020 level, I guarantee it would still be news. People will still be wearing masks, state/local governments will be enforcing mandates, etc.

They were in pre-2020 for bad flu pandemics:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_swine_flu_pandemic_in_Mex...

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

#34
"Vaccine efficacy, effectiveness and protection"

https://www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/detail/vaccine...

Vaccine efficacy is found in trials, vaccine effectiveness is dynamic depending WHEN you calculate it and its found after 'deployment in the field'

"A vaccine’s efficacy is measured in a controlled clinical trial and is based on how many people who got vaccinated developed the ‘outcome of interest’ (usually disease) compared with how many people who got the placebo (dummy vaccine) developed the same outcome. Once the study is complete, the numbers of sick people in each group are compared, in order to calculate the relative risk of getting sick depending on whether or not the subjects received the vaccine. From this we get the efficacy – a measure of how much the vaccine lowered the risk of getting sick. If a vaccine has high efficacy, a lot fewer people in the group who received the vaccine got sick than the people in the group who received the placebo."

vs

"Vaccine effectiveness is a measure of how well vaccines work in the real world. Clinical trials include a wide range of people – a broad age range, both sexes, different ethnicities and those with known medical conditions – but they cannot be a perfect representation of the whole population. The efficacy seen in clinical trials applies to specific outcomes in a clinical trial . Effectiveness is measured by observing how well the vaccines work to protect communities as a whole. Effectiveness in the real world can differ from the efficacy measured in a trial, because we can’t predict exactly how effective vaccination will be for a much bigger and more variable population getting vaccinated in more real life conditions."

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

#35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the article says 78% of people 12 yo and older are vaccinated in Israel. Not sure what percent if you drop it to include everyone. 87% of those who were hospitalized were 60 or older (which doesn't match the general population). I imagine that vaccination rates are much much higher than 60% among those over 60. In the US its around 80%. But also, hospitalizations are much more likely the older you get. Moreover…

Yeah, I got the overall vaccination rate from Google (60%), but as you say, the differences in age groups matter.

[deleted]

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

#36
post #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?

Fair point.

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

#37
post #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…

Vaccination is heavily correlated with age and age is heavily correlated with risk. So, you really need to do a more complex breakdown to understand what’s going on.

Aka if 90% of the 80+ year old population is vaccinated and 0% of the under 12 year old population is vaccinated then being unvaccinated starts to look like a good option. Except what you really want is to be young.

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

#39

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 have heard similarly from various outlets that "we'll just have to learn to live with Covid-19, like we do with the flu and other viruses that we're unable to eradicate".

What I find curious is that SARS-CoV-1 (e.g. the original SARS circa 2003) seemed to eventually disappear overnight. It leaves me pondering two questions:

1. Did SARS-CoV-1 actually disappear or do we just not hear about it anymore?

2. What is different between SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2 that makes us think the latter will persist indefinitely when the former seemed to disappear?

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

#40
post #34

"Vaccine efficacy, effectiveness and protection" https://www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/detail/vaccine... Vaccine efficacy is found in trials, vaccine effectiveness is dynamic depending WHEN you calculate it and its found after 'deployment in the field' "A vaccine’s efficacy is measured in a controlled clinical trial and is based on how many people who got vaccinated developed the ‘outcome of interest’ (usuall…

Thank you. This distinction is often forgotten and the terms used interchangeably in articles and debates
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