I.e older and more susceptible to illness people like 70 year olds are more likely to be vaxxed than 25 year olds. Had the vaccination rate been constant across ages, the unvaccinated death rate would be far higher and the vaccinated death rate far lower. It’s bad stats to not account for the population differences like that one.
Wish I could edit my comment to add a statement that very sadly has been shown to have been needed. age is but one example out of many different conditions that would cause more frail people to self select. Stop replying to say one can zoom in and see age segments.
And please note that the main point of the article is an ELI5 of why absolute death numbers is misleading, but that eli5 doesn’t mention the sample bias which would be a good “next layer” to mention at least in the conclusion.
So yeah it’s all very fine that as so many people like to reply that a reader can dig around and find age groups assuming they already know about sample bias and thus are trying to control for those things. But oh wait one little problem. This article is explaining why one needs to look at rates not absolute numbers. If someone is aware of sample bias why would they need this article? Are you telling me people who need the first eli5 are going to know sample bias?!?!?
No, the death rate in the ONS data from England is age adjusted. So among the same aged cohorts, the vaccinated are more likely to die than the unvaccinated. Almost twice as likely for the last 6 months straight.
I'm speaking specifically of the age 10 to 59 age group. For the last 6 months that age group, the vaccinated are almost twice as likely to die of any cause than the unvaccinated.
That age group is too wide to make a meaningful comparison without standardising for age. Less than 10% of under-18s and less than 60% in the 18-24 age group have been fully vaccinated, whereas it's more than 80% for the 55-59 group.
The unvaccinated population in that age group is significantly younger than the vaccinated population. As you would expect, older people tend to die more often.
This is also mentioned in a footnote in the ONS data (and this is why they tend to focus on age-standardised figures).
You could say the same for the covid death rate: generally saying that it is a deadly pandemic is misleading, because it disproportionately kills old and sick people, and those tend to die more often
I don't understand your argument. When we're comparing "overall death rate in a world without COVID" to "death rate in a world with COVID", we're looking at the same population. We don't need to adjust for age if we're looking at the same population.
This kind of misconception is so common it even has its own name: Simpson's paradox. It's laughable to think that the vaccinated population, compared to unvaccinated, is dying at the rate suggested by these numbers and no one is ringing the alarm.
Another factor is that if the vaccination rate is very high, this also results in fewer deaths in the unvaccinated group, since it reduces the R factor.
This is actually debatable given that "fully" vaccinated people who get infected - a so-called 'breakthrough infection' - seem to transmit SARS2 at close to the same rate as those unvaccinated [1,2]: fully vaccinated individuals with breakthrough infections have peak viral load similar to unvaccinated cases and can efficiently transmit infection in household settings, including to fully vaccinated contacts
Whether the R-factor is reduced markedly depends on the number of breakthrough infections. In this study the infection rate in household contacts exposed to the delta variant was 25% (95% CI 18–33) for fully vaccinated individuals compared with 38% (24–53) in unvaccinated individuals, i.e. the vaccinated run ⅔ of the risk of getting infected compared to the unvaccinated. Given that the vaccinated were of a younger age than the unvaccinated the actual risk reduction is likely to be even smaller than stated.
Well, as confirmed by your [1], vaccinated people can transmit the virus during a much shorter duration. That's bound to severely decrease R among vaccinated crowds.
This is only one source, there are more with different results.
> That's bound to severely decrease
This does not seem to be the case if the examples of fully vaccinated regions - Gibraltar is an interesting example, the entire population from 12 years up is vaccinated but the infection rate seems to be skyrocketing which has led to the cancellation of Christmas celebrations and new restrictions [1]. Israel is another example of how vaccinations do not seem to curb infections, something which is clearly visible on this graph [2] showing vaccinations (teal line) and daily infections, sliding 7-day window (dark line).
My question to all those who seem to insist on the current crop of vaccines being as effective as they're claimed to be is what you think will be gained by what is clearly a half-truth? Yes, the vaccines seem to have some effect for a limited amount of time but is is clear that they do not provide enough protection to justify the proposed vaccination mandates nor does the difference between transmission rate between vaccinated and unvaccinated justify implementing a 2-tier society as is now being either planned or implemented in several countries. If people are to follow The Science™ they should be allowed to go by actual scientific data, whether those align with the narrative or go against it. Dogma is not science, it is a belief or set of beliefs that is accepted by the members of a group without being questioned or doubted. The insistence on the efficacy of the currently available vaccines against SARS2 has the looks of a dogma in the light of the evidence. Assuming that the goal of everyone partaking in this discussion is to both minimise the impact of as well as the length of the local epidemics and the pandemic it is important for people not to be misled with false promises, something which has happened far too often already.
My belief is that people generally quarantine after they show symptoms, so the dangerous period is the presymptomatic phase, and the length of that phase appears to be similar between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated. So it's possible vaccinations don't majorly lower R.
It’s frustrating how people cherry pick data and don’t think about important findings in their own cited sources. I’ve seen similar comments to that one so many times citing viral load being the same and always ignoring that the duration is much shorter. Their own citations undermine their point…
It is even more frustrating to see the dogmatic approach to the fact that the vaccines are less effective than they were made out to be. The more this becomes clear, the harder it will be to keep up this narrative. I assume that you, just like most others here, wants to see these epidemics and the pandemic end as soon as possible with as little damage as possible? In that case it is adamant to be objective in the search for a way out. Current data shows that the vaccines which are now available don´t provide the level of protection against either infection, hospitalisation or death which they were supposed to do so an alternative strategy is needed. This can include a new vaccine - there are many in the works - but it has to include a way to keep society running without imposing authoritarian mandates or we stand to loose much more than just the people who succumbed to the disease.
Let me see if I understand correctly your thesis (collated from several of your responses).
1. You believe/observe that the current generation of vaccines are useful.
2. You believe/observe that the current generation of vaccines are insufficient.
3. You believe/observe that many people (on HN?) have too much faith in vaccines as a silver bullet.
4. You believe/observe that the government responses (in western countries?) are authoritarian, hence politically dangerous. I imagine you mean lockdowns and the pressure towards vaccination. I am not sure whether you also mean other measures (mandatory masking, classroom shutdowns, remote work, closing down restaurants, etc.)
5. You believe/observe that the government responses (in western countries?) are inefficient or insufficient.
6. You conclude that that the government responses must change.
Is that correct?
I agree with you that it is an important conversation to have. Of course, I disagree with some of your points (in particular 4.), but that's life :)
No, not really. Instead of walking your points I can summarise my position on this issue as it does not really differ from my position on most other issues.
My starting point is objectivity and as such I dislike narrative. When SARS2 became a thing it was woven into a number of narratives, one of which has now become dominant in many western countries. This narrative revolves around a collectivist technocratic approach to tackling what is deemed to be a severe threat against public health. The technocracy gets to dictate how people are to act, when they are to act, with whom they are allowed to interact and when they have to refrain from interacting with anyone. Dissenters are quickly labelled and attempts are made to publicly shame those who oppose. The tools of the technocracy are deemed to be highly effective and, again, dissenters are labelled and shamed. The problems with this approach are manifold:
- SARS2 is not a severe threat for large swaths of the population - this became clear early on in the pandemic and has been clear ever since.
- liberal democracy and technocracy do not mix, the former depends on dissent and discussion to reach a consensus while the latter can not tolerate dissent. Most western countries have liberal democratic traditions in one form or another, most people like it that way and want to keep these traditions alive.
- the tools of the technocracy are not nearly as effective - and in some cases not effective at all, or worse (e.g. forcing people to shelter in place, not allowing them to go outdoors) - as stated but those who point this out are quickly marked as dissenters, labelled and shunned. The same is done to anyone who suggests alternatives to the officially mandated tools.
- authoritarian powers, once gained, are hard to give up.
Once the epidemics and the pandemic are over - in a year or 2 - an overview of the pros and cons of the different strategies should be made based on real data (i.e. raw verified data) by neutral observers (if such can be found). What I expect that overview to show is that the costs of the more authoritarian measures - strict lockdowns, school closures, severe limits to personal contacts - ended up being higher than the benefits. Those costs can be expressed in lives lost to (substance/physical) abuse, loneliness, estrangement and other social impacts leading to an increase in suicides. They can be expressed in the loss of academic achievement due to school closures leading to a lowering of future prospects for the affected. As tends to be the case these impacts are not equally spread over all classes of society, the lower classes are hit much harder than the middle and higher.
With all these things in mind it should be now be clear that for me the issues are not so much related to whether the vaccines are useful or not or whether masking works or not. If the vaccines are shown to work people will take them without the need for a dictate from the authorities to do so. Even if they are shown to only be marginally effective those in the most vulnerable groups will still take them to lower their personal risk. Locking down society has not been proven to be effective in reducing the spread of transmission [1,2] while it has a marked impact on social well-being as well as economic activity. The Swedish example shows that people voluntarily adjust their behaviour to limit the risk of personal exposure without a need for the authorities to intervene. People make risk assessments every day, some of them rational - people tend to not cross busy motorways since they know they probably won't survive - and other irrational. A policy based on informing people of the true risks (which was hard to do in the beginning of the pandemic but a lot easier a few months in), providing means - informational, material, medical and economical - to lower those risks and a limited number of targeted actions to keep essential services running is compatible with a liberal democratic political tradition and does far less damage to society than an authoritarian regime of lockdowns and forced medical procedures.
The authoritarian approach might fit countries with an authoritarian political tradition, China or - earlier - the Soviet Union being prime examples of such. Western countries tend(ed) to pride themselves on not being 'like China' or 'like the Soviet Union'. I'd like to keep it that way, if I want to live in an authoritarian state there are plenty of such to move to. I did not do so, instead I moved from one liberal democracy to another.
So, if I understand correctly, it seems that your disagreement with current policies is, to a large extent, ideological, rather than practical.
Also, if I read correctly what you write, the main disagreement between you and me is that you seem to conflate:
1. technocracy == authoritarianism;
2. taking public health measures == authoritarianism;
3. informed people will take good decisions.
To which I would counter with different definitions and observations:
1. In my book, technocracy means "letting people who actually understand the issue do something about it", by opposition to "count on people whose main skills are diplomacy and politics do something about a problem they don't understand." We still count on the latter to actually defend our democracy and technocrats (just as police officers, judges or teachers) are part of the means of action of a democracy.
2. In my book, the measures that have been taken were imperfect necessary (or at least seemed necessary at the time) based on existing knowledge about epidemics. They have a cost, largely in terms of personal comfort and mental health, but we're so far from authoritarian regimes that I suspect that people who use the word "authoritarian" to describe them have no clue what it means.
3. Experience with the US seems to suggest that many informed people will... do random things?
First, an aside: did you ever watch that interview with Jordan Peterson by Cathy Newman, better known as the "so what you're saying" interview [1]?
Also, no, your understanding of my - fairly straightforward, straight out of liberal democracy 101 - position is lacking. Technocracy can lead to authoritarianism but it does not need to. Taking public health measures also does not equate authoritarianism - where do you get that from? On the subject of well-informed people taking "good" decisions a whole discussion can be had but one thing is clear: well-informed people make better decisions than uninformed or misinformed people, on aggregate.
Now with regard to your positive attitude towards technocracy I'd suggest that this is probably due to the fact that you, just like most people here, are "well-educated" and employed in a knowledge-driven field where knowledge is a currency/equals power. In this environment is is very easy to fall into the trap of ultracrepidarianism [2], the tendency for people to assume that expertise is a universal currency which retains its value outside of the specific field of expertise. Who better to deal with a health "crisis" than healthcare experts, people who are just as likely to fall for this trap? Who better to deal with any crisis than those experts, they are after all the people who know most about whatever field the crisis might relate to?
The answer here is that those experts are non-experts outside of their fields, just like you and I and everyone else around here - we might strive to become Homo Universalis in the style of Leonardo DaVinci but alas, the knowledge available to humanity will no longer fit in a single man's brain. Putting those experts in charge means they will start making decisions outside of their field of expertise, assuming that everything can be described in terms of their own field of expertise [3]. You might try to counter by saying that of course that is not what would happen, decisions related to the economy will be made by experts on economy, those related to social well-being will be made by experts on sociology and psychology, things which impact national security will be relegated to defence experts, etcetera. That is not how it works as was clearly shown in many countries which followed the narrative by putting the experts in charge.
On the subject of "informed people doing random things" another long discussion can be had, but suffice to say that people have the freedom to act as they will within the bounds of the law, even if those actions are deemed inappropriate or foolhardy by others. These rights are set out in the US constitution and made explicit in the Bill of Rights which states that The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. The perennial struggle between 'rugged individualism' and 'the greater good' will continue no matter how many words we waste on it so as long as the USA keeps its constitution and bill of rights and related laws in place I'd advise those informed people against doing what I consider to be stupid things (which may not coincide with what you or they consider to be stupid things) but I would not try to force them to refrain from doing said things. If they (plan to) do stupid things which harm others they'll quickly find themselves on the wrong side of some law or other and as such can be refrained from doing those things.
Do you agree with a vaccine mandate using the current crop of SARS2 vaccines? If so, can you explain your reasoning around forcing people to take what still are experimental preparations without a safety track record where the efficacy of the preparations is questionable and the disease they are supposed to protect against is not a significant threat for the majority of those who would be forced to undergo vaccination?
Can you defend the imposition of authoritarian lockdown regimes when the disease-related outcome in regions without such regimes are largely similar, knowing that those authoritarian measures come with a large cost of their own?
The reason for which I attempt to summarize your position is very much because I wish to avoid arguing against something that you're not claiming. So far, it's the only technique I have found to discuss online with people with whom I disagree while learning from the conversation and avoiding turning it into a slugfest. Apparently, I'm failing.
I'm going to thank you for your time and wish you a pleasant day.
As a side-note, I'm well aware of the Dunning-Kruger hypothesis. I've seen it in action all across the board since the beginning of the crisis and, frankly, pretty much all the time for as long as I remember paying attention, technocracy or not.
Having answered your questions I can not help but notice that you did not answer my questions on vaccination mandates and lockdown regimes. It would be interesting to know if you support these and, if so, why.
We seem to speak different languages. In my language non strictly enforced mask mandates, mild social distancing, and vaccine mandates for approved vaccines that do actually provide solid protection (while yes not complete protection, this was not promised btw) sounds highly reasonable. You seem to say those measure mean authoritarianism you. Thus we speak different languages. I could talk in my own language, writing pages on my beliefs, but unless I spend a huge amount of research to write it in your language, it’s pointless.
Why, yes, a vaccination mandate using an experimental vaccine for a disease which is not a significant risk for a large part of those who would actually be forced to take those vaccines given that those for whom SARS2 is a risk mostly have been vaccinated by now and where those vaccines do not give significant protection against catching or spreading the disease is not reasonable. I suspect you would have not called this reasonable before the pandemic hit but were scared into accepting a "new normal" for 'the greater good of society".
Calling the vaccines "approved" is playing with words, compare what it normally takes to get approval for a bog-standard vaccine with how this novel mRNA vaccine was "approved" to see what I'm getting at, consider that there is no long-term experience with either mRNA vaccines in humans nor this specific vaccine based around the (known to be harmful [1,2,3,4]) "spike protein". Realise that the method of action for these vaccines (whether mRNA or vector-based) is to induce your body to produce just that harmful spike protein and consider the potential for damage, especially in combination with the untargeted delivery mechanism - nano-lipid particles carrying mRNA fragments, targeting is done by injecting into muscle tissue and as such wholly depends on the accuracy of the injection - my wife could hardly move her arm for a week after an inaccurately (too high) placed first dose of "Moderna SpikeVax".
Do we speak a different language? That is possible, language is malleable and words change their meaning. This tends to be an evolutionary process which takes a significant amount of time. Changing the definition of words and concepts in a mere few months is not evolutionary but revolutionary, this is not a natural process. I'll stick to evolution instead of revolution.
Thankfully, epidemiologists around the world did not wait for mint2 on HN to realize this. All of these all-age rates are age-adjusted according to the country’s population pyramid.
I.e older and more susceptible to illness people like 70 year olds are more likely to be vaxxed than 25 year olds. Had the vaccination rate been constant across ages, the unvaccinated death rate would be far higher and the vaccinated death rate far lower. It’s bad stats to not account for the population differences like that one.