WIRED article: The Statistical Secrets of Covid-19 Vaccines

[NXR]

https://www.wired.com/story/the-stat...id-19-vaccines

It's a long article however it explains exactly what those efficacy numbers actually mean and why comparing the efficacy numbers between vaccines is not apples-to-apples.

It also explains why 95% does not mean what people may think it does.

This is the best, understandable article I've read on this subject.

Except:

But “efficacy” has a specific meaning in the world of vaccine statistics, and it’s not “Hey, if I get a shot, my chance of getting Covid is now just 5%!” Ha, no, you dope. Because your chance of getting Covid wasn’t 100% in the first place. See, vaccine efficacy is actually a relative risk reduction. It’s a ratio comparing the risk of infection in people who got vaccinated versus people who didn’t (the control group).

Ray

[R.Wold]

In simpler (and less statistically valid) terms it can also mean that 95% of those vaccinated have zero chance and 5% have a 100% chance of getting it. Which as I said, may not be statistically valid, but there’s still a very good chance it’s correct.

[NXR]

Originally Posted by R.Wold

In simpler (and less statistically valid) terms it can also mean that 95% of those vaccinated have zero chance and 5% have a 100% chance of getting it. Which as I said, may not be statistically valid, but there’s still a very good chance it’s correct.

If I understood you, no. The 5% still have the same chance of getting infected as they would have without the vaccine but it's definitely not a certainty.

The wildcard as usual are the asymptomatic cases. Only an antibody test after COVID has gone can reveal that.

Ray

[tap4154]

There's only been a small number of breakthrough cases of people fully vaccinated getting severe disease. It's almost statistically insignificant. If you get the vaccine, you have virtually no chance of ending up in the hospital or dying from covid.

I just wish the folks that say "hey I'm healthy I don't need it" would realize that they could still carry it, and the virus does not go anywhere without a human being to carry it there. So if they get infected and they go walking around infecting other people, it's never going to end.

I had an interesting experience yesterday. I decided to go to a great great nephew's first birthday party. I thought it was only going to be a small amount of people, and the invitation mentioned was that you could wear a mask. It turned out there were a large number of people, and no one was wearing a mask.

It was at a house out in the desert and all of the celebration was in a large backyard. And thankfully there was a nice breeze. I mainly sat at a table with my sister, her husband and their adult kids, who are all vaccinated, and a few of their younger children, that are not vaccinated.

To sit with a group of people and watching the kids playing in the bounce house, after a year of lockdown, was an interesting experience. I could have put a mask on, but decided since no one else was, might as well jump into the deep end. I'm vaccinated, and actually think I had the virus in February 2020.

In retrospect, I would not have gone if I knew it was going to be a maskless large gathering, but we'll see what happens. I'm frankly not worried about me, but I'm worried about a lot of the other people that were there.

Btw now they're saying that we should have a pretty good summer, but just think if all the people that are vaccination hesitant would get vaccinated over the summer. If they did perhaps we would not have another flare-up in the fall. I was in a Walmart grocery store the other day, and over the loudspeaker they announced "covid vaccine now available in the pharmacy, come & get it."

Please... get vaccinated! Don't you just do it for you, do it for your neighbors and your loved ones.

[VanDiemen23]

I think one thing the article points out is the insistence of so many people that they understand it before they get vaxed.

Here's the bad news - 99.999% of the people out there really can't understand it. Yet they don't apply that high bar to anything else in their lives that makes the world convenient.

I have two engineering degrees. I've had multiple classes in probability and statistics, applied those principals for years in my jobs, and I still don't understand it all. This is a specialized field, with unique definitions that don't correspond to the average person's thought processes.

Heck, a large part of our population can't stay out of crushing debt, don't understand compound interest, can't prioritize things, and that's easy math.

Years ago on my first job I worked on laser guided bombs. I was describing the operation of the guidance to our new Captain, and used the term "specular reflection" - which is how the laser bounces off the target and appears to the incoming missile.

After the brief I got a note from the front office to explain specular reflection in layman's terms. I really couldn't so I went to one of our PhD physicists, a really well respected older woman on the staff and she flatly said "you can't".

IN other words, you can often explain something in very top level terms, but dig one layer below that and the average person's eyes are just going to glaze over.

There has to be a level of trust. In the absence of trust you try carrot and stick. The farther along you go, the smaller the carrot and the bigger the stick. I'm not even sure herd immunity is the proper goal here. What we want to do is minimize the chance of the emergence of a variant that is much more lethal and more contagious. The more hosts that remain, the more the virus has an opportunity to improve itself.

The public faces of this disaster have stumbled several times over the last year - but they haven't stumbled or wavered from supporting the vaccine. Regardless of how rushed the early trials were, we now have a couple of billion data points. Adverse reactions and breakthrough cases are astonishingly small, and the effects of covid in those cases mild in comparison to unvaccinated. So the risk proposition (probability of unvaccinated and getting a bad case) versus (probability of a bad reaction or having a breakthrough case with severe symptoms) are several orders of magnitude in difference.

However, its been shown many times that people are really, really bad at understanding low probability of occurrence/high consequence risks. That's why there's actuarial science.

[NXR]

Originally Posted by VanDiemen23

That's why there's actuarial science.

Actuaries? Aren't those the people that keep raising my insurance premiums?

Ray

[JJones84676]

Originally Posted by tap4154

There's only been a small number of breakthrough cases of people fully vaccinated getting severe disease. It's almost statistically insignificant. If you get the vaccine, you have virtually no chance of ending up in the hospital or dying from covid.

I just wish the folks that say "hey I'm healthy I don't need it" would realize that they could still carry it, and the virus does not go anywhere without a human being to carry it there. So if they get infected and they go walking around infecting other people, it's never going to end.

I had an interesting experience yesterday. I decided to go to a great great nephew's first birthday party. I thought it was only going to be a small amount of people, and the invitation mentioned was that you could wear a mask. It turned out there were a large number of people, and no one was wearing a mask.

It was at a house out in the desert and all of the celebration was in a large backyard. And thankfully there was a nice breeze. I mainly sat at a table with my sister, her husband and their adult kids, who are all vaccinated, and a few of their younger children, that are not vaccinated.

To sit with a group of people and watching the kids playing in the bounce house, after a year of lockdown, was an interesting experience. I could have put a mask on, but decided since no one else was, might as well jump into the deep end. I'm vaccinated, and actually think I had the virus in February 2020.

In retrospect, I would not have gone if I knew it was going to be a maskless large gathering, but we'll see what happens. I'm frankly not worried about me, but I'm worried about a lot of the other people that were there.

Btw now they're saying that we should have a pretty good summer, but just think if all the people that are vaccination hesitant would get vaccinated over the summer. If they did perhaps we would not have another flare-up in the fall. I was in a Walmart grocery store the other day, and over the loudspeaker they announced "covid vaccine now available in the pharmacy, come & get it."

Please... get vaccinated! Don't you just do it for you, do it for your neighbors and your loved ones.

It’s odd to me that a vaccine so safe and effective, you have to be pressured to take it.

It’s a personal choice for everyone to make. For those that have made the choice to take it, why all the worry about those who choose not to?

[RS ODonnell]

Originally Posted by JJones84676

It’s odd to me that a vaccine so safe and effective, you have to be pressured to take it.

It’s a personal choice for everyone to make. For those that have made the choice to take it, why all the worry about those who choose not to?

Because it needs a host to live and mutate....

A mutation could be so virulent and severe that it's easily transmitted, have a 90% mortality rate, and make the current vaccine ineffective.

The fact is that COVID needs a place to live. If we're not careful we could look like India.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-...t/faq-20505779

[JJones84676]

Originally Posted by RS ODonnell

Because it needs a host to live and mutate....

A mutation could be so virulent and severe that it's easily transmitted, have a 90% mortality rate, and make the current vaccine ineffective.

The fact is that COVID needs a place to live. If we're not careful we could look like India.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-...t/faq-20505779

260 million doses already in the arms of folks in the USA. It would be impossible for us to become the next India.

The mods should close this thread as you are fear mongering and spreading fallacy.

[Old-Biscuit]

Originally Posted by JJones84676

260 million doses already in the arms of folks in the USA. It would be impossible for us to become the next India.

The mods should close this thread as you are fear mongering and spreading fallacy.

US population ----- 328 Million

more than 259 million doses have been administered, fully vaccinating over 114 million people or 34.4% of the total U.S. population.

[JJones84676]

Originally Posted by Old-Biscuit

US population ----- 328 Million

more than 259 million doses have been administered, fully vaccinating over 114 million people or 34.4% of the total U.S. population.

Yep. Exactly with almost 80% of our population at least single doses, statistically impossible for USA to become next India.

And pretty much everyone here that wanted one, has it.

J.J.

[Old-Biscuit]

[VanDiemen23]

Originally Posted by JJones84676

Yep. Exactly with almost 80% of our population at least single doses, statistically impossible for USA to become next India.

And pretty much everyone here that wanted one, has it.

J.J.

And your qualifications as an epidemiologist and/or statistician are?.....

[Yosemite77]

Originally Posted by JJones84676

Yep. Exactly with almost 80% of our population at least single doses, statistically impossible for USA to become next India.



And pretty much everyone here that wanted one, has it.



J.J.

Your logic is flawed, that is, unless one person getting 2 doses counts as 2 people getting vaccinated. At the moment, 46% of the US population currently has received at least one dose of the vaccine, with 35% being fully vaccinated.
To come close to herd immunity, or 70-80% of the population being vaccinated, depending on who you listen to, the responsibility would fall on the of backs of our children. Given that the issue of being vaccinated has been hijacked as a political issue for many people, this is unlikely as these same people won’t be opting to have their kids vaccinated.