Presumably the estimated number of lives saved through vaccination in your analysis is also provided that we don't develop (and actually deploy) more effective treatments for COVID in the mean time.
I'm not seeing the partially-vaccinated group in the analysis, yet that seems to be where most of the short-term risk from the vaccines is concentrated. It looks like deaths track first-dose and booster-doses; people who are 2-weeks-after-dose-2 or -after-booster have some protection (waning over time), but you have a significantly elevated risk following the 1st dose or booster. The net risk/benefit of the vaccines must include this high-risk period, and should include the loss of protection over time requiring boosters (with repeated high risk of injury/death). Also, a significant percentage of people are not able to get the 2nd dose, either because they had such a serious reaction or injury from the 1st that they will never get another one, or they died. People who get one dose and can't continue seem to be at much higher risk of dying over time, and that risk needs to be included.
I also object to the perversion of the language that calls 2-weeks-post-final-dose as "vaccinated", but doesn't include partially vaccinated. No one new to the discussion would have this expectation, and it is often unclear what is meant even when aware. Maybe we should call them "vaccinated-2-weeks-post-final-dose" or "vaccinated-2wpfd" to make this clear? Then we could call partially vaccinated "vaccinated-1-dose" etc.
Thanks Gator, much appreciated! I'm very curious... Looking at Table 4 of UK data, ages 40-79 have higher case rates per capita in vaccinated group compared to unvaccinated... What gives? Is this likely to be an oversampling of vaccinated people, possibly due to behavioral differences in testing behavior that correlate with vaccine choices? Or is there another explanation... If the true infection rate of vaccinated people is equal or lower than the rate in the unvaccinated group, would this not dramatically decrease subsequent estimates of the life-saving benefit of vaccines, given the onset of infection?
Can we look at death rates as a ratio of total population of vaxxed/unvaxxed groups by age to gain any clarity here on the aggregate benefit?
-- Against alpha, the vaccines were pretty effective against infections, but among breakthrough cases, there was no additional layer of protection against severe outcomes
-- Many of the people who would have been protected against alpha were actually able to contract a mild delta case and transmit it. So, in a way, the vaccines protected against severe outcomes of delta. This created the illusion that the vaccines were especially effective against hospitalization and death all along.
Is this right? I've been struggling to understand what's going on. Thank you!
I am not a data guy and perhaps I am misunderstanding something here. The UK data in the tweet above you describe as accurate. It shows more deaths on the vaccinated population than in the unvaccinated.
Yet the data you show below, diving deeper into their numbers, shows the opposite. Thats it is the vaccinated population that are dying. Maybe I need to reread that older article again to understand. Am I missing something?
Is the data in the "the new report" section unrelated to the Tweet Graph above?
90% of people in the most vulnerable populations are vaccinated. They unfortunately still have breakthrough cases, and the total number of deaths in the vaccinated population is higher than the unvaccinated population, because there are more people with high risk available to die.
But the rates of death (from COVID) are lower in the vaccinated population, according to this data.
Presumably the estimated number of lives saved through vaccination in your analysis is also provided that we don't develop (and actually deploy) more effective treatments for COVID in the mean time.
Yes, good point. Effective treatments already exist, the death rate from properly-treated covid is close to zero.
I'm not seeing the partially-vaccinated group in the analysis, yet that seems to be where most of the short-term risk from the vaccines is concentrated. It looks like deaths track first-dose and booster-doses; people who are 2-weeks-after-dose-2 or -after-booster have some protection (waning over time), but you have a significantly elevated risk following the 1st dose or booster. The net risk/benefit of the vaccines must include this high-risk period, and should include the loss of protection over time requiring boosters (with repeated high risk of injury/death). Also, a significant percentage of people are not able to get the 2nd dose, either because they had such a serious reaction or injury from the 1st that they will never get another one, or they died. People who get one dose and can't continue seem to be at much higher risk of dying over time, and that risk needs to be included.
I also object to the perversion of the language that calls 2-weeks-post-final-dose as "vaccinated", but doesn't include partially vaccinated. No one new to the discussion would have this expectation, and it is often unclear what is meant even when aware. Maybe we should call them "vaccinated-2-weeks-post-final-dose" or "vaccinated-2wpfd" to make this clear? Then we could call partially vaccinated "vaccinated-1-dose" etc.
Thanks Gator, much appreciated! I'm very curious... Looking at Table 4 of UK data, ages 40-79 have higher case rates per capita in vaccinated group compared to unvaccinated... What gives? Is this likely to be an oversampling of vaccinated people, possibly due to behavioral differences in testing behavior that correlate with vaccine choices? Or is there another explanation... If the true infection rate of vaccinated people is equal or lower than the rate in the unvaccinated group, would this not dramatically decrease subsequent estimates of the life-saving benefit of vaccines, given the onset of infection?
Can we look at death rates as a ratio of total population of vaxxed/unvaxxed groups by age to gain any clarity here on the aggregate benefit?
Dear Gator, I have a two-part hypothesis:
-- Against alpha, the vaccines were pretty effective against infections, but among breakthrough cases, there was no additional layer of protection against severe outcomes
-- Many of the people who would have been protected against alpha were actually able to contract a mild delta case and transmit it. So, in a way, the vaccines protected against severe outcomes of delta. This created the illusion that the vaccines were especially effective against hospitalization and death all along.
Is this right? I've been struggling to understand what's going on. Thank you!
I am not a data guy and perhaps I am misunderstanding something here. The UK data in the tweet above you describe as accurate. It shows more deaths on the vaccinated population than in the unvaccinated.
Yet the data you show below, diving deeper into their numbers, shows the opposite. Thats it is the vaccinated population that are dying. Maybe I need to reread that older article again to understand. Am I missing something?
Is the data in the "the new report" section unrelated to the Tweet Graph above?
90% of people in the most vulnerable populations are vaccinated. They unfortunately still have breakthrough cases, and the total number of deaths in the vaccinated population is higher than the unvaccinated population, because there are more people with high risk available to die.
But the rates of death (from COVID) are lower in the vaccinated population, according to this data.