| Plenty of things are left out, indeed. to add to the list of missing, important numbers: > so if you are vaccinated you can get infected Yes, you _can_, but at what rate compared to unvaccinated people? It's not the same, real-world data shows that. > What's the mix of vaccinated and unvaccinated people in the hospital This number is meaningless without also knowing what percentage of the people are vaccinated. Compare: "80% of the people in hospital have $foo, and 80% of the general population has $foo" - $foo has no bearing at all on hospitalisation. "80% of the people in hospital have $spon, and 5% of the general population has $spon" - $spon is clearly linked to the majority of hospitalisations. "45% of the people in hospital have $bar, and 5% of the general population has $bar" - $bar is linked to higher rates of hospitalisation, _despite_ not being the majority of hospitalisations. Spoiler: for some age groups in the UK now, "being unvaccinated" is much like $bar. Headlines about e.g. the Provincetown outbreak that say "most people hospitalised here are vaccinated" without further clarification, are somewhere from meaningless to misleading. |
The phase 3 trial endpoints were symptomatic infection not asymptomatic infection. The small samples in those studies showed effectively zero efficacy against asymptomatic infection. While the breakthrough cases are largely blaming delta variant being vaccine evading, the real world results dont appear out of line with the mid 2020 clinical trials.
Appologies for the not great reference, and context is only astrazeneca which I understand was less effective against asymptomatic than the MRNA: https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/12/phase-3-...
Of the group receiving an initial half-dose of COVID-19 vaccine, 7 of 1,120 (0.6%) participants in the vaccine group and 17 of 1,127 participants (1.5%) in the control group had asymptomatic infections, equating to a vaccine effectiveness against asymptomatic spread of 59%. In those who received two standard doses, 22 of 2,168 participants (1%) in the vaccine group and 23 of 2,223 in the control group (1%) had asymptomatic infection, indicating a 4% vaccine effectiveness against asymptomatic spread.
> This number is meaningless without also knowing what percentage of the people are vaccinated.
I dont get why this is not constantly reported? For the last year 'vaccine efficacy' has been talked about constantly - here we can have a real world, real time calculated vaccine efficacy, stratified by age, race, weight, height, favourite color, with out the excuse of, 'its a tiny rushed clinical trial' and nobody seemingly wants to know.