Yes, the numbers are lower. That’s obvious. All some want to see is the actual numbers. We can interpret just like you did.
1 Like
According to L.A. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer, even among those who are hospitalized due to COVID, “vaccination contributes to a less severe course of hospitalization among people who end up infected with COVID”. The unvaccinated who are hospitalized tend to be significantly younger with few comorbidities, compared to those who are vaccinated.
2 Likes
Most around me can’t interpret well. They assume 12 or 25% means the vaccines aren’t working and proudly proclaim that when, especially with relatively high vaccination rates and exactly who is being affected, yes they are unless one is older or immunocompromised. Then they’re unreliable.
I still wish instead of rates more places would post their actual numbers like Tidelands does. That’s far easier for the masses to understand even if it still doesn’t do the math based upon % vaccinated.
2 Likes
Is it because he is not vaccinated, or is it because he’s not an asset and just happens to be unvaccinated?
1 Like
Exactly. Some people seem to want to manipulate the statistics or hope that others won’t interpret them properly.
3 Likes
That first one from the NYT is based on data prior to the Delta variant:
“While vaccines have done a remarkable job at protecting a vast majority of people from serious illness, the data in the Times analysis generally spanned the period from the start of the vaccination campaign until mid-June or July, before the Delta variant became predominant in the United States.”
The CDC report on sustained VE against hospitalizations for those vaccinated with Pfizer/Moderna was just published the other day - there was a news blurb on it from somewhere but the actual study is more comprehensive than the summary I read. This analysis factors in the impact on immunocompromised, as well as time since vaccination and changes in relative effectiveness as Delta became more prominent. It doesn’t tell the story past the month of July and we may find that August numbers are lower. Still, it’s helpful for those tracking how VE can change over time and difference between the immunocompromised and others.
"Overall VE against hospitalization for COVID-19 was 86% (95% CI = 82%–88%) over the full surveillance period, including 90% (95% CI = 87%–92%) among patients without immunocompromising conditions and 63% (95% CI = 44%–76%) among patients with immunocompromising conditions. VE among patients with illness onset during March–May was 87% (95% CI = 83%–90%), and among those with illness onset during June–July was 84% (95% CI = 79%–89%). In models considering time since vaccination, VE was 86% (95% CI = 82%–90%) during the 2–12 weeks after the second vaccine dose and 84% (95% CI = 77%–90%) 13–24 weeks after the second dose; there was no significant difference in VE between these two periods (p = 0.854).
ETA:
Agree. Many states bury the actual raw data somewhere in their health department website. They should make retrieval of the actual numbers a lot easier. The Tidelands numbers are helpful, except that we have no idea what the vax rate is. So it’s more complicated than just making the numbers available - but it’s up to the media to explain it to everyone clearly. If they are falling short, it’s either due to an agenda or because the reporters are simply not sufficiently numerate.
2 Likes
Sorry - behind a pay wall. Synopsis: the two top FDA regulators believed there was pressure on the FDA to approve the eight-month booster despite lack of evidence that they were needed. Didn’t realize that there was push-back within the FDA on this issue.
More context:
Some public health experts have said the administration’s booster shot announcement, which did include a caveat that the F.D.A. would first have to authorize such shots, undermined the agency’s responsibility to make that assessment on its own schedule, led by career scientists. Since Mr. Biden took office in January, the White House has made a point of saying it would not influence the F.D.A.’s work.
Some outside experts have also challenged the booster plan as premature, saying the available data shows that the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines are holding up well against severe disease and hospitalization, including against the Delta variant. Extra shots would be warranted only if the vaccines failed to meet that standard, some have said.
White House officials have stressed that the plan for Americans to start receiving boosters next month was uniformly endorsed by the most senior federal health officials, including Dr. Janet Woodcock, the acting F.D.A. commissioner. They have described the need to develop a booster plan as urgent in light of growing evidence that the vaccines lose potency over time — a trend that they fear suggests the vaccines’ protection against severe disease and hospitalization will also soon weaken.
Of course there will be pushback from FDA employees when non-FDA officials (whether in the White House or CDC) start making announcements that are firmly in FDA’s purview. These two people will be very difficult to replace, and I wouldn’t be surprised if more staff leave. They all can make a whole lot more money in pharma/biotech/consulting.
It does seem that there are many people anxious for boosters due to the perception that vaccine-derived immunity is waning, and that is the reason for more breakthrough infections with the Delta variant. That is on display in this thread: Anyone gotten a booster shot?
I think that the differences in the percent of vaccinated versus unvaccinated in hospitals has to do with mask mandates and individual behaviors. When there is a mask mandate and/or widespread use of masks indoors, the percent of hospitalized vaccinated individuals is going to be lower than places where masking is less common.
The main reason that the Delta variant is more contagious since it has a far higher viral load than the other variants, rather than because of differences in the spikes. Vaccinating reduce illness by allowing the body to respond a lot more quickly to an infection - the virus gets into the body, but is usually eliminated before it can actually infect the body. Because the Delta produces many more viruses, a person who is exposed has a much larger number of viruses getting into their body. This can overwhelm even a vaccinated person’s initial defenses. The vaccination will also put that person ahead in immune response even if they get infected, which is why there are fewer hospitalizations.
However, masking reduced the amount of viruses which can get into a body. For an vaccinated person, that is usually enough to make the “invasion” manageable and their infection rates will drop to those of lesser contagious variants. However, even if they are masked, an unvaccinated person who is exposed at the same level, will get infected.
So masking is much more effective for vaccinated people than for unvaccinated people, especially if that masking is not partnered with social distancing.
In LA, people mask up a lot more than in Michigan, and this includes vaccinated and unvaccinated people.
I am sure that we will continue to see much higher rates of breakthrough infections in places in which the people in charge refuse to enact mask mandates, or in which people refuse to follow mask mandates.
4 Likes
I guess like everything else about this pandemic, the question would be whether major public health decisions should be driven by the available evidence (ie the science) or by perceptions and anxiety on the part of some of the public.
ETA: can’t think of a better way for the public to lose trust in the vaccine than by thinking the FDA is under political pressure.
4 Likes
Yes. I think they used it as an excuse to release him. He’s already been a problem not following Covid protocol and missing five days of preseason training.
Political pressure (real or perceived) on the FDA is not exactly a new thing. A collection of accusations of various kinds: Criticism of the Food and Drug Administration - Wikipedia
It is also an inherently difficult job for the FDA to do when the actual situation and public perception of the situation changes far more quickly (and with incomplete information) than the FDA would ordinarily do its job (including gathering more complete information). Hence, anything the FDA does or does not do in such a situation (like with COVID-19) will be second-guessed by many.
3 Likes
Surviving Covid seems to give more immunity, but for those who don’t do well with it, there are oodles of other problems that can be lifelong. Just saw another article about a study - this time with kidney damage. NYT is firewalled for some, so I’ll cut and paste some here.
It’s not just deaths that make the vaccines better.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, doctors have found that people who become very ill with Covid-19 often experience kidney problems, not just the lung impairments that are the hallmark of the illness.
Now, a large study suggests that kidney issues can last for months after patients recover from the initial infection, and may lead to a serious lifelong reduction of kidney function in some patients.
The study, published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, found that the sicker Covid patients were initially, the more likely they were to experience lingering kidney damage.
But even people with less severe initial infections could be vulnerable.
“You see really, across the board, a higher risk of a bunch of important kidney-associated events,” said Dr. F. Perry Wilson, a nephrologist and associate professor of medicine at Yale, who was not involved in the study. “And what was particularly striking to me was that these persisted.”
Kidneys play a vital role in the body, clearing toxins and excess fluid from the blood, helping maintain a healthy blood pressure, and keeping a balance of electrolytes and other important substances. When the kidneys are not working properly or efficiently, fluids build up, leading to swelling, high blood pressure, weakened bones and other problems.
The heart, lungs, central nervous system and immune system can become impaired. In end-stage kidney disease, dialysis or an organ transplant may become necessary. The condition can be fatal.
The new study, based on records of patients in the Department of Veterans Affairs health system, analyzed data from 89,216 people who tested positive for the coronavirus between March 1, 2020, and March 15, 2021, as well as data from 1,637,467 people who were not Covid patients.
Between one and six months after becoming infected, Covid survivors were about 35 percent more likely than non-Covid patients to have kidney damage or substantial declines in kidney function, said Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, chief of the research and development service at the V.A. St. Louis Health Care System and senior author of the study.
…
Other researchers have found similar patterns, “so this is not the only study suggesting that these events are transpiring after Covid-19 infection,” he added.
He and other experts said that if even a small percentage of the millions of Covid survivors in the United States developed lasting kidney problems, the impact on health care would be great.
The new study found that 4,757 Covid survivors had lost at least 30 percent of kidney function in the year after their infection, Dr. Al-Aly said.
That is equivalent to roughly “30 years of kidney function decline,” Dr. Wilson said.
Covid patients were 25 percent more likely to reach that level of decline than people who had not had the illness, the study found.
Smaller numbers of Covid survivors had steeper declines. But Covid patients were 44 percent more likely than non-Covid patients to lose at least 40 percent of kidney function and 62 percent more likely to lose at least 50 percent.
Idk, I feel like CT has a pretty high percentage of people wearing masks, at least in my area and where my mother lives.
Not sure this is an excuse to cave into the demands of the patient in this special case. Doctors are criticized for doing so with respect to “unproven” therapies - unproven “need” for boosters should be no different.
There are at least two issues here: 1) the American people should not come to expect continued mandates based on political considerations over public health. Universities, employers, etc. are basing their own policies on the guidance from our public health leaders, presumably on the basis of sound evidence. Any deviation from that basis will simply erode public trust in those officials, making it even more difficult the next time the country is asked to roll up their sleeves. 2) Worldwide vaccine distribution is nowhere near where it needs to be and that not only hurts other nations, it hurts the US, too. If Americans are taking more of the vaccine out of fear and greed, then that risks forcing other populations to succumb to the virus; specifically, to other lethal strains that will eventually make their way here (because they weren’t stopped elsewhere). How is that possibly a good outcome? This needs to be a worldwide effort.
Worldwide efforts are usually unsuccessful, and take decades when they do work, as in polio. Vaccine reluctance remains high in Europe. The WHO is making little progress distributing the 500 million doses it has been given. It is not realistic to expect a global response to this crisis.
2 Likes
Here too.
To those who like polling data, here’s the latest from Axios-Ipsos. Fewer people are reluctant from even just a couple of weeks ago and the majority support various safe policies (masks, requiring vaccines, etc). There’s a bit of breakdown in the data that makes it an interesting read and I don’t think it’s firewalled, so those who want to can access it:
3 Likes