A little Covid, a little math

[minoanmiss]

https://slate.com/technology/2021/08/what-it-means-when-75-percent-of-covid-19-cases-occur-in-vaccinated-people.html

What Does It Really Mean When a Headline Says “75 Percent of Cases Occurred in Vaccinated People”?

Comments

[dewline]

I needed the relevant mathematics here. Grateful for that!

[sabotabby]

Oh, thanks for this. I was terrified.

[sara]

So that you see this too: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/08/06/1025553638/how-a-gay-community-helped-the-cdc-spot-a-covid-outbreak-and-learn-more-about-de

[sabotabby]

This is properly terrifying. Not every health agency is willing to change like the CDC and ours are particularly sluggish in response.

[sara]

Well, I found it reassuring, honestly. People did good work and everyone lived.

[cjsmith]

"It's all about the denominators" is a great way to put it. Thanks for sharing this.

[amaebi]

Thread. Expansion of "it's all in the denominators."

[sara]

It means that of 60k vaccinated queers in Provincetown for Hot Vax Summer, a vanishingly small number of people got sick because the vaccines work super well.

It also means that queer people are super into being proactive about public health measures like vaccination.

[lemonsharks]

We have done this before and we are fully aware of exactly how shitty it can get.

[sara]

Yup. The way this was spun in the news was not remotely helpful.

[minoanmiss]

Word.

[sara]

And this morning a detailed breakdown from NPR about exactly how the gays scienced the bejeepers out of this: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/08/06/1025553638/how-a-gay-community-helped-the-cdc-spot-a-covid-outbreak-and-learn-more-about-de

[minoanmiss]

Thank you in turn for linking me to this. It was both educational and heartening.

[pensnest]

Reporters really should be required to take a course in statistics before they're allowed to 'report' on this sort of thing. Gah.

[cellio]

Oh, that's a great explanation of the deceptive "math". I mean, if 100% were vaccinated, then 100% of cases would be vaccinated even if there were, like, three of them. Percentages don't mean a lot without the raw numbers even if they're being used correctly! (And the reverse too; raw numbers need context. "Ooh, county X has twice as many cases as county Y! That's bad!" -- uh, maybe; what are their populations?)