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To: David Chase

Regarding the vaccine, I don’t have enough information to make a rational choice either way at the moment. I appear to have plenty of time, though, so I’m going to wait and see.

You did quote the numbers provided, but as I said, the numbers don’t make sense to me, in Israel, or anywhere else. Supposedly, only 10% of the US population has gotten Covid in the past year and a half. That averages to “only” about 0.9% infected per month. With no vaccine. Pretty impressive! Certainly better than 2.9%.

The “95% effective” meme that keeps getting repeated might refer to the experience of severe symptoms, rather than the likelihood of infection. Vaccines teach the body to fight off infection after all, not to avoid it completely. But if we limit “Covid cases” to those who experience severe symptoms, the number of cases drops way below 10%, most of those remaining being elderly. People wouldn’t be nearly as panicked, I suppose, and wouldn’t put up with mask mandates or lockdowns.


55 posted on 06/18/2021 4:35:22 PM PDT by rightwingcrazy (;-,)
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To: rightwingcrazy
"Supposedly, only 10% of the US population has gotten Covid in the past year and a half. That averages to “only” about 0.9% infected per month. With no vaccine."

You're not accounting for how diseases actually spread in real life. It's not a simple steady stream of new infections. Transmissions go in waves based upon changes in behavior and cohort mixing. Here's what that's looked like in Israel:

You can't simply take the total average and compare that to a specific period because there are wild swings depending on which specific time period you're looking at. Their peak was mid-January with a 7-day moving average of 8,300 new cases a day. That's a rate of 251,596 cases per month. Right now, they're seeing a moving average of 17 cases per day, or a rate of 516 cases per month. So are we comparing that January peak to the whole pandemic or the flatline of cases and deaths they're currently experiencing?

You also need to narrow that down to specific cohorts. Are we talking about hospital workers who are surrounded by sick people all day? Retail workers who encounter thousands of random strangers each day? Or elderly folks who see maybe 2 or 3 new people a month? Or someone who works from home and gets groceries delivered, seeing almost no one in person during the pandemic? Different groups will have wildly different risk profiles.

To simply smoothe every cohort and every day of the pandemic together and compare that to a more specific cohort in a more specific time period produces totally useless data because the comparison is completely invalid.

Here's an easier way to look at it: before the Pfizer vaccine, Israel's COVID-19 experience was the same as all their neighbors. Cases and deaths went up, they went down, but there was always a baseline maintained through the fluctuations. After vaccinating most of their population, Israel now has no COVID-19. It's gone. All their neighbors? Same baseline as before, same fluctuations as before. Some are seeing cases and deaths hold steady. Some are seeing them rise. But in Israel, COVID-19 is gone. That's pretty simple.

57 posted on 06/18/2021 8:42:37 PM PDT by 2aProtectsTheRest (The media is banging the fear drum enough. Don't help them do it.)
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