[dekhn]

I don't disagree with the directionality you describe but look at the case rates and hospitizalization numbers- even the most highly vaccinated areas of the country are still heavily impacted. Omicron changed everything and our reporting hasn't caught up.

The best way to think about CDC press releases is that they not intended to be read by scientists. They are intended to guide good behavior and may not be 100% accurate in terms of medical/scientific knowledge.

[ceejayoz]

Thus far, every indication we have is that there's a successful decoupling of cases and hospitalization/death. Omicron's been in South Africa long enough for the lagging indicators of hospitalization/death. They remain low.

Good examples here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/interactive/2022/omicr...

Screenshotted here due to paywall: https://imgur.com/a/gk73qDy

[dekhn]

what you're describing is mostly intrinsic to omicron, not vaccines.

[ceejayoz]

That’s trivial to disprove.

https://www.inquirer.com/health/coronavirus/covid-hospitaliz...

[dekhn]

I don't think that disproves anything. First, I question their stats. IE I think they are straight-up fudging their numbers. Second, there are more people being hospitalized in my area (which has high rates of vax) than there are unvaxxed people. I would have agreed with you until omicron, but it's clear this is hitting vaxxed people are similar rates to unvaxxed, and that the hospitalization rates are similar.

[ceejayoz]

> First, I question their stats. IE I think they are straight-up fudging their numbers.

So, any evidence that contradicts your feeling will be dismissed?

> Second, there are more people being hospitalized in my area (which has high rates of vax) than there are unvaxxed people.

Sure. In a place with 100% vaccinated people, they would be all of the hospitalizations.

Relative proportions matter.

[dekhn]

I wasn't talking in proportions, I meant absolutely. I mean, it's extremely improbable that the huge jump in hospitalizations could be explained by massively more vaxxed people, because there aren't actually enough physical people in the state to explain it otherwise.

Just be aware: you're arguing with a scientist who worked for decades on medical biology who has, until recently, generally been quiet when seeing huge amounts of misleading medical knowledge trotted about to justify one procedure or another. I am always open to data and my "feelings" don't matter- except that most of the time, when I dig into the underlying claims, I find that they are misrepresented (usually unintentionally). So I use my own priors, and frankly, all I can say is that finding stats on a government page or a news article and using those to justify policy isn't convincing to scientists (and, it appears, the vast majority of the american public).

Ultimately, our public health people lost the PR war, and they did so through muddled messaging. Literally everything about vaccines has turned out to be less effective that public health leadership predicted, or claims. I'm not really surprised; I've commented many times on HN about how deeply challenging it is to do public health with a noncompliant population.