[dpark]

This is interesting. PBS indicated that the vaccine is 30-40% protective against omicron infection and that it jumps above 70% with a booster.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/health/how-effective-are-co...

I wonder if the early data has been proven wrong or if something is wonky about Alberta. At even 30% effectiveness you’d expect to see a big gap between unvaccinated and vaccinated new cases.

Weirdly near the bottom of your link they show nearly 90% effectiveness against all the variants of concern, but omicron isn’t listed. It seems like the vaccines would have to be negatively effective against omicron for all the other data to work out, though.

[osigurdson]

That certainly used to be the case. In mid December for example (i.e. around the time the PBS article was written) active cases were roughly evenly split between unvaccinated and vaccinated. This is in a highly vaccinated population (85% of 12+, 73% total - out of 4.5M) so prevalence in the unvaccinated group was 3-4X higher than vaccinated at that time.

It seems unlikely that the Alberta population is experiencing a significantly different pandemic than neighbouring regions (demographics and responses are largely the same). I also wouldn't conclude from this data that vaccines are negatively effective as hospitalization rates are lower in the vaccinated group.

[dpark]

> It seems unlikely that the Alberta population is experiencing a significantly different pandemic

I agree. But I don’t understand that data. It doesn’t seem to line up with data from other areas.

e.g. Seattle is seeing 2.5x more infections among the unvaccinated.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/record-covi...

[tekknik]

> It seems like the vaccines would have to be negatively effective against omicron for all the other data to work out, though.

If you search hard enough (and quickly enough, they’ll likely be removed soon as they’re anti-narrative) you’ll find articles of people discussing exactly this. That the vaccine actually increases your chance of infection.

[dpark]

> If you search hard enough

You can find anything online if you search hard enough. That doesn’t mean it’s true. It probably means you’re actively seeking out bias-confirming articles.

> (and quickly enough, they’ll likely be removed soon as they’re anti-narrative)

And now it’s full on conspiracy theory. This stuff is nuts. People like Alex Jones loudly put forward blatant lies that are “anti-narrative” and no one shuts them down. Why does every group imagine they are persecuted?

> you’ll find articles of people discussing exactly this. That the vaccine actually increases your chance of infection.

I would be interested in any relevant reputable articles showing this, but I’m pretty certain there are none.

[aerostable_slug]

Relevant article: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/23/world/middleeast/israel-v... https://archive.ph/jTdUI

It's not conspiracy theorist BS to suggest Google shapes search results for various reasons, to include politics. They been forced to admit as much. And before you use the confirmation bias argument, I'm pro-vax and all in favor of as many boosters as they offer.

[dpark]

It’s conspiracy theory to suggest without evidence that “anti-narrative” information is being “removed”. Yes, big tech is certainly shaping results, but they’re doing that in both directions. They aren’t simply suppressing data they (or the hypothetical overlords) disagree with. They are feeding the info that people want. (Which is still bad)

The existence of that article in the New York Times would certainly seem to indicate a lack of suppression.

I do appreciate the link, though. That’s interesting and I hadn’t heard that was a concern. I wonder if there is science evidence that or if it’s hypothetical. The article doesn’t indicate one way or the other unless I missed it.

[aerostable_slug]

I will note it took me some time to find the article (I knew it existed because I'd read it when it came out). Google very nearly refused to do anything but send me links about how important it is to get boosters.

I don't know a ton about the science behind it other than some teams in Israel seem to have pretty strong feelings about it (more pointed than what's in the NYT article), but in my quick search I didn't see them in the search results.

With regards to search shaping, it's pretty easy to see: just Google image search "black inventors" then "white inventors". Also try "black family" then "white family". I'm not claiming any kind of oppression here, just noting that one of the sets of results looks like a Benetton-style diversity ad, while the other just has black people. I find it difficult to believe this was an organic result that wasn't explicitly influenced behind the scenes.

[dpark]

> With regards to search shaping, it's pretty easy to see: just Google image search "black inventors" then "white inventors". Also try "black family" then "white family". I'm not claiming any kind of oppression here, just noting that one of the sets of results looks like a Benetton-style diversity ad, while the other just has black people. I find it difficult to believe this was an organic result that wasn't explicitly influenced behind the scenes.

You could be right. I certainly see that “white family” involves a fair number of pictures of non-white folks. Individually the results all make sense (one from an article called “my white family”, stock photo “interracial black white family”, another about from an article about adopting a white child), but it’s odd that “black family” doesn’t have the same.

At the same time, it’s entirely plausible that this is just surfacing biases in the input. Maybe articles about families that aren’t just white have higher page rank? Maybe it’s something else. It’s interesting, but I’m doubtful it’s intentional (but it could be). If Google wanted to push a bias, it would make a lot more sense to push it on the unqualified “family” or “inventors”.

“White inventors” showing some black inventors makes a lot of sense given popular articles like “The iconic American inventor is still a white male” that specifically discuss non-white inventors.