12 ms·

According to Table 2 their sample had 8,199 unvaccinated and 9,269 vaccinated. It seems odd that more cases were found in the vaccinated people, can anyone sug

According to Table 2 their sample had 8,199 unvaccinated and 9,269 vaccinated. It seems odd that more cases were found in the vaccinated people, can anyone suggest why? Statistical anomaly? Edit: I misread the table, I thought column 1 was number of subjects. The replies explain well why the # of cases would be larger for the (larger) vaccinated population.

akrito 5y ago
It's because many more people are vaccinated. Assume 100,000 people are vaccinated and 10,000 aren't. If the infection rate in vaccinated population is 5%, and in the unvaccinated population is 50%, then out of 10,000 infected people, 5,000 will be vaccinated and 5,000 won't.
- landemva 5y ago
  A couple years ago vaccines prevented almost all people from getting sick. Not anymore.
  - ramesh31 5y ago
    You need 90%+ vaccination rates to start seeing herd immunity, which is what we have for things like MMR.
    - landemva 5y ago
      Does a prior infected person count toward herd immunity? I have Dr. letter of my recovery. I heard those who had it and recovered have sterilizing immunity. Is that better or worse than the vaccine non-sterilizing immunity for getting us to herd immunity?
      - garmaine 5y ago
        Why don’t you get the jab? It would be strictly better to have both.
      - rabuse 5y ago
        Anecdotal, but I got my first bought of covid in Feb. 2020, and it was very flu-like for me. I've had 2 more infections after that (one, didn't even know, and the next was like a mild cold). In South Florida, we barely had a lockdown.
        beberlei 5y ago
        How do you even know it was COVID? It could have been any number of flu/cold? In feb 20 there was no way to get tested for it
        rabuse 5y ago
        The complete loss of smell and taste, was never a flu symptom to me before.
      - walterbell 5y ago
        In the Denmark numbers above, only 4.3% of Omicron infections were Covid-recovered, compared to 77% being double-vax, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29633285 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29633285
        usrusr 5y ago
        With hardly more than 10% recovered, total, vs almost everybody vaccinated that's not much of a difference. Very well within the range of methodical difference like in which group those recovered and vaccinated are counted and so on.
        meheleventyone 5y ago
        For that to be meaningful you need to compare the per capita rate of vaccinated and prior covid infected. That’ll show you very roughly how much protection each provides in a way that’s comparable.
      - usrusr 5y ago
        Herd immunity counts nothing against delta or omicron. The endemic state, a permanent balance between immunity vaning and reinfection, that's not herd immunity. Natural immunity is just as temporary as vaccine immunity, give or take a few months.
        joshuahughes 5y ago
        "Natural immunity is just as temporary as vaccine immunity, give or take a few months." Citations needed for that claim. Based on the articles below, natural immunity seems to be vastly longer lasting... Lasting immunity found after recovery from COVID-19 https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/lasting-immunity-found-after-recovery-covid-19 https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/lasting... Had COVID? You’ll probably make antibodies for a lifetime https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01442-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01442-9
        ripe 5y ago
        The concluding para from your Nature article says the opposite of what you're claiming, and supports the person you're replying to: "the persistence of antibody production, whether elicited by vaccination or by infection, does not ensure long-lasting immunity to COVID-19. The ability of some emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants to blunt the protective effects of antibodies means that additional immunizations may be needed to restore levels, says Ellebedy. “My presumption is, we will need a booster.”"
        peteradio 5y ago
        Its a confusing conversation because theres different levels of immunity. I think the bone marrow cells are indicative of long-term protection from severe illness. They have long ramp up time from the point of latest exposure. Blood boosted antibodies will be there to thwart an infection and continue to be there to prevent reinfection but the body turns off the pump because it becomes a waste of resource without an active enemy. So the lifecycle of a (non-boosted) person going through endemic sars-cov2 will be slow activation followed by an afterburner which will tend to get you through a wave. Or you can try to time a booster to get you through a wave without getting triggered by the actual virus. So in a sense, there is evidence long term "slow" immunity which is less effective at preventing transmissions and so allows for waves which indicates a certain lack of immunity by another defintion. I think that leads to conflict because of fuzzy definition on either side of the conversation. Anyway that's my mental model of this whole thing. Any glaring holes?
    - hcurtiss 5y ago
      It wasn’t that long ago that the scientists were suggesting 70% was sufficient. Is it that >90% is required when the vaccines don’t effectively impede transmission? Is it possible 100% would not be sufficient?
      - _djo_ 5y ago
        70% would have been workable for the original or 'wild type' strain. Delta and Omicron are many times more transmissible.
      - lukevdp 5y ago
        Yes it is, it depends on the efficacy of the vaccine and the transmissibility of the virus.
      - beberlei 5y ago
        The 70% number was often mentioned when the original variant was still predominant end of last year. Alpha and Delta are just so much more transmissible. The vaccine was never said to prevent all infections by serious scientists
      - usrusr 5y ago
        It's been clear for a long time that even 100% won't make the virus disappear. Yes, back in the early days when we didn't use the greek alphabet yet eradication was a reasonably possible best case outcome (though not really likely, given the transmissibility across species. Look at how prevalent pre-delta variants are now: no, they have not disappeared because almost everybody had delta, they have disappeared because of vaccine shots combined with moderate (compared to 2020) NPI. A virus strain does not simply disappear because there's a new one in town, it keeps replicating until it runs out of hosts. And virions are certainly not defecting to a newer, more glorious flag (like humans might do)
  - brazzy 5y ago
    Most vaccines never had 100% effectiveness, especially the flu vaccine.
  - walterbell 5y ago
    CDC changed their definition in Sept. 2021, https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article254111268.html https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article25411126... > Before the change, the definition for “vaccination” read, “the act of introducing a vaccine into the body to produce immunity to a specific disease.” Now, the word “immunity” has been switched to “protection.” The term “vaccine” also got a makeover. The CDC’s definition changed from “a product that stimulates a person’s immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease” to the current “a preparation that is used to stimulate the body’s immune response against diseases.”
    - _djo_ 5y ago
      The CDC's definition has been out of date for years. It turns out that to a large degree sterilising immunity was a myth with only a tiny, tiny fractions of vaccines actually achieving it. [0] Most just achieve enough reduction in transmission to end or prevent outbreaks by bringing the r0 well below 1. [0]https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/09/sterilizing-immunity-myth-covid-19-vaccines/620023/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/09/steriliz...
      - zerocount 5y ago
        How convenient that the article, in effect, supports the current agenda of pushing vaccines on everyone. It does this through the angle of sterilizing immunity being unachievable. It starts off with some Danish guy observing a measels outbreak in Scotland and how the people that had the measels 65 years earlier were not affected by the current outbreak. You can stop reading at that point because it totally ignores that critical part of the story. It then uses this observation as the catalyst for the 'myth' of sterilizing immunity of the measels vaccine. Then it goes into testimony from experts on how we can't prove an infection took place, blah, blah, blah... Right. So here we go with the wiggle room that eventually justifies the Covid vaccine being given to everyone on earth. Never mind that 65 years later the old people didn't get infected with the measels. Their bodies must have had some seasoned immunity workers who remembered how they handled it last time. It's never ending. "We don't have proof." "There's not enough evidence." "We can't quantify what defines that." But just to be safe, give this to everyone and punish those that refuse. I can't believe people actually suggest that unvaccinated people not be allowed in the hospital or should just suffer their 'bad decisions.' Really? Is that what it's come to?
  - tomjen3 5y ago
    I don't think the flu one ever did, and smallpox, rabies and Measels probably still do, though I wouldn't recommend testing it.
  - avereveard 5y ago
    It's not a sustainable business, once polio was eradicated from territory, you lost all sales. New vaccines are more of what we'd call a subscription model.
  - zerocount 5y ago
    Yep. That wasn't the goal for the Covid vaccine. It was to keep people from getting severe cases and preventing deaths. It works, but it should be targeted to high-risk individuals and not a blanket strategy that's not needed for the majority of the world's population.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
sdenton4 5y ago
Consider the extremal point: If 100% of people are vaccinated, then all cases are breakthrough cases, and 0% of cases will be in unvaccinated people. At some point, the raw count of breakthrough cases crosses over and exceeds the raw count of unvaccinated cases. This doesn't mean the vaccine is ineffective, of course!
- GameOfFrowns 5y ago
  - Xylakant 5y ago
    No, that’s not what it means. It means that comparing the absolute numbers of people infected in both groups - vaccinated people and unvaccinated people - or even the percentage of the total number of infections is not valid. You need to take the ratio of people infected relative to the group size.
  - shawabawa3 5y ago
    What? If you think for 5 seconds it's extremely easy to see how effective the vaccine is Compare the % of population that is vaxxed Vs unvaxxed, compare the % of cases in vaxxed Vs unvaxxed people, see how the percentage compares

akrito 5y ago

It's because many more people are vaccinated. Assume 100,000 people are vaccinated and 10,000 aren't. If the infection rate in vaccinated population is 5%, and in the unvaccinated population is 50%, then out of 10,000 infected people, 5,000 will be vaccinated and 5,000 won't.

landemva 5y ago
A couple years ago vaccines prevented almost all people from getting sick. Not anymore.
- ramesh31 5y ago
  You need 90%+ vaccination rates to start seeing herd immunity, which is what we have for things like MMR.
  - landemva 5y ago
    Does a prior infected person count toward herd immunity? I have Dr. letter of my recovery. I heard those who had it and recovered have sterilizing immunity. Is that better or worse than the vaccine non-sterilizing immunity for getting us to herd immunity?
    - garmaine 5y ago
      Why don’t you get the jab? It would be strictly better to have both.
    - rabuse 5y ago
      Anecdotal, but I got my first bought of covid in Feb. 2020, and it was very flu-like for me. I've had 2 more infections after that (one, didn't even know, and the next was like a mild cold). In South Florida, we barely had a lockdown.
      - beberlei 5y ago
        How do you even know it was COVID? It could have been any number of flu/cold? In feb 20 there was no way to get tested for it
        rabuse 5y ago
        The complete loss of smell and taste, was never a flu symptom to me before.
    - walterbell 5y ago
      In the Denmark numbers above, only 4.3% of Omicron infections were Covid-recovered, compared to 77% being double-vax, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29633285 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29633285
      - usrusr 5y ago
        With hardly more than 10% recovered, total, vs almost everybody vaccinated that's not much of a difference. Very well within the range of methodical difference like in which group those recovered and vaccinated are counted and so on.
      - meheleventyone 5y ago
        For that to be meaningful you need to compare the per capita rate of vaccinated and prior covid infected. That’ll show you very roughly how much protection each provides in a way that’s comparable.
    - usrusr 5y ago
      Herd immunity counts nothing against delta or omicron. The endemic state, a permanent balance between immunity vaning and reinfection, that's not herd immunity. Natural immunity is just as temporary as vaccine immunity, give or take a few months.
      - joshuahughes 5y ago
        "Natural immunity is just as temporary as vaccine immunity, give or take a few months." Citations needed for that claim. Based on the articles below, natural immunity seems to be vastly longer lasting... Lasting immunity found after recovery from COVID-19 https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/lasting-immunity-found-after-recovery-covid-19 https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/lasting... Had COVID? You’ll probably make antibodies for a lifetime https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01442-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01442-9
        ripe 5y ago
        The concluding para from your Nature article says the opposite of what you're claiming, and supports the person you're replying to: "the persistence of antibody production, whether elicited by vaccination or by infection, does not ensure long-lasting immunity to COVID-19. The ability of some emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants to blunt the protective effects of antibodies means that additional immunizations may be needed to restore levels, says Ellebedy. “My presumption is, we will need a booster.”"
        peteradio 5y ago
        Its a confusing conversation because theres different levels of immunity. I think the bone marrow cells are indicative of long-term protection from severe illness. They have long ramp up time from the point of latest exposure. Blood boosted antibodies will be there to thwart an infection and continue to be there to prevent reinfection but the body turns off the pump because it becomes a waste of resource without an active enemy. So the lifecycle of a (non-boosted) person going through endemic sars-cov2 will be slow activation followed by an afterburner which will tend to get you through a wave. Or you can try to time a booster to get you through a wave without getting triggered by the actual virus. So in a sense, there is evidence long term "slow" immunity which is less effective at preventing transmissions and so allows for waves which indicates a certain lack of immunity by another defintion. I think that leads to conflict because of fuzzy definition on either side of the conversation. Anyway that's my mental model of this whole thing. Any glaring holes?
  - hcurtiss 5y ago
    It wasn’t that long ago that the scientists were suggesting 70% was sufficient. Is it that >90% is required when the vaccines don’t effectively impede transmission? Is it possible 100% would not be sufficient?
    - _djo_ 5y ago
      70% would have been workable for the original or 'wild type' strain. Delta and Omicron are many times more transmissible.
    - lukevdp 5y ago
      Yes it is, it depends on the efficacy of the vaccine and the transmissibility of the virus.
    - beberlei 5y ago
      The 70% number was often mentioned when the original variant was still predominant end of last year. Alpha and Delta are just so much more transmissible. The vaccine was never said to prevent all infections by serious scientists
    - usrusr 5y ago
      It's been clear for a long time that even 100% won't make the virus disappear. Yes, back in the early days when we didn't use the greek alphabet yet eradication was a reasonably possible best case outcome (though not really likely, given the transmissibility across species. Look at how prevalent pre-delta variants are now: no, they have not disappeared because almost everybody had delta, they have disappeared because of vaccine shots combined with moderate (compared to 2020) NPI. A virus strain does not simply disappear because there's a new one in town, it keeps replicating until it runs out of hosts. And virions are certainly not defecting to a newer, more glorious flag (like humans might do)
- brazzy 5y ago
  Most vaccines never had 100% effectiveness, especially the flu vaccine.
- walterbell 5y ago
  CDC changed their definition in Sept. 2021, https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article254111268.html https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article25411126... > Before the change, the definition for “vaccination” read, “the act of introducing a vaccine into the body to produce immunity to a specific disease.” Now, the word “immunity” has been switched to “protection.” The term “vaccine” also got a makeover. The CDC’s definition changed from “a product that stimulates a person’s immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease” to the current “a preparation that is used to stimulate the body’s immune response against diseases.”
  - _djo_ 5y ago
    The CDC's definition has been out of date for years. It turns out that to a large degree sterilising immunity was a myth with only a tiny, tiny fractions of vaccines actually achieving it. [0] Most just achieve enough reduction in transmission to end or prevent outbreaks by bringing the r0 well below 1. [0]https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/09/sterilizing-immunity-myth-covid-19-vaccines/620023/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/09/steriliz...
    - zerocount 5y ago
      How convenient that the article, in effect, supports the current agenda of pushing vaccines on everyone. It does this through the angle of sterilizing immunity being unachievable. It starts off with some Danish guy observing a measels outbreak in Scotland and how the people that had the measels 65 years earlier were not affected by the current outbreak. You can stop reading at that point because it totally ignores that critical part of the story. It then uses this observation as the catalyst for the 'myth' of sterilizing immunity of the measels vaccine. Then it goes into testimony from experts on how we can't prove an infection took place, blah, blah, blah... Right. So here we go with the wiggle room that eventually justifies the Covid vaccine being given to everyone on earth. Never mind that 65 years later the old people didn't get infected with the measels. Their bodies must have had some seasoned immunity workers who remembered how they handled it last time. It's never ending. "We don't have proof." "There's not enough evidence." "We can't quantify what defines that." But just to be safe, give this to everyone and punish those that refuse. I can't believe people actually suggest that unvaccinated people not be allowed in the hospital or should just suffer their 'bad decisions.' Really? Is that what it's come to?
- tomjen3 5y ago
  I don't think the flu one ever did, and smallpox, rabies and Measels probably still do, though I wouldn't recommend testing it.
- avereveard 5y ago
  It's not a sustainable business, once polio was eradicated from territory, you lost all sales. New vaccines are more of what we'd call a subscription model.
- zerocount 5y ago
  Yep. That wasn't the goal for the Covid vaccine. It was to keep people from getting severe cases and preventing deaths. It works, but it should be targeted to high-risk individuals and not a blanket strategy that's not needed for the majority of the world's population.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

sdenton4 5y ago

Consider the extremal point: If 100% of people are vaccinated, then all cases are breakthrough cases, and 0% of cases will be in unvaccinated people. At some point, the raw count of breakthrough cases crosses over and exceeds the raw count of unvaccinated cases. This doesn't mean the vaccine is ineffective, of course!

GameOfFrowns 5y ago
- Xylakant 5y ago
  No, that’s not what it means. It means that comparing the absolute numbers of people infected in both groups - vaccinated people and unvaccinated people - or even the percentage of the total number of infections is not valid. You need to take the ratio of people infected relative to the group size.
- shawabawa3 5y ago
  What? If you think for 5 seconds it's extremely easy to see how effective the vaccine is Compare the % of population that is vaxxed Vs unvaxxed, compare the % of cases in vaxxed Vs unvaxxed people, see how the percentage compares