Damned lies and statistics
The message on conservative media is that COVID vaccines are risky and of questionable value.
Moreover, tyrants are forcing it on you. Of course you are angry.
The Fox and Friends hosts were on-message this morning. There was a lot of head shaking and smirking. "Who knows how effective the vaccines are?" "I've heard of three people who died, and they were fully vaccinated."
Will Cain, a Fox commentator, responded to Colin Powell's death:
[H]ow effective overall are these vaccines? The headlines have shifted over the past 18 months. And look at these numbers. We have gone from implications that the vaccine was 100 percent effective to 90 percent, to 70 percent, to 60 percent, to 50 percent. … This does not inspire much confidence.
One vivid anecdote like the death of fully-vaccinated Colin Powell, is easier to grasp than are the statistics of COVID deaths, especially when the statistics are presented misleadingly. College classmate Eliot Nierman, M.D. is a physician and Professor of Clinical Medicine at a University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine. He read this blog and Tucker Carlson's words yesterday and sent a comment that helps explain how it is Carlson might be so misleading about vaccine effectiveness.
Eliot sent me this note:
Interesting idea to talk of [medical people] as fiduciaries. You might also have talked about religious leaders. One could make the argument that media leaders should be as well.
As for what Carlson said, the issue is misuse of statistics and using a singles case an anecdote to prove something. He is of course the liar and manipulator The chances of dying unvaccinated are at least 10 times higher than vaccinated. Yes that means that some vaccinated people die. And yes that means that if most people are vaccinated, as many who die of covid may in fact be vaccinated.
Assume for example, that 90% of elderly are vaccinated (true in some locations) and the chances of dying unvaccinated and elderly are 1/10 that of dying vaccinated. Assume your chances of dying from covid if you are unvaccinated are 0.1 % (1/1,000). The chance of dying vaccinated are 0.01% (1/10,000). Take 1 million elderly people. 900,000 are vaccinated, 100,000 are not. Of the unvaccinated 100 die. Of the vaccinated 90 die. Hmmm, close to the figure in Maryland of 40%. (actually higher at 47%)
Anyone who wants to bet with me and give me 10x odds when the odds should be even count me in!
Eliot graduated from college summa cum laude in physics, and the college is very stingy giving out summas. It is possible that his comment needs a moment's translation and repetition. As is predictable, the pool of people who are most vaccinated are the people who understood themselves to be most at risk, the elderly and ill. They are the people most likely to die of something, especially if there is a complication from COVID, as in the case of Colin Powell. There is also a pool of people who have, so far, not gotten vaccinated--a pool that includes a large number of people who are young and healthy, and who consider themselves invulnerable. A small percentage of people in both groups get COVID and get very sick.
As the pool of highly vulnerable people get vaccinated and grows to approach 90% of the population, and the pool of unvaccinated shrinks, then even the rare instances of hospitalization and death from the huge pool of the vaccinated turns out to be a bigger number than much-greater percentage of illnesses from the smaller pool. Moreover, not only are the sizes of the pool different, but the age and risk profile of people in the pools are different; the vaccinated group was older and less healthy to begin with. So the absolute number of deaths from the large and small pools might be equal.
Properly understood, this is strong evidence for vaccination. Being vaccinated is as good or better than being young and healthy!
When reported misleadingly, as Tucker Carlson did, that near equal numbers of people die--vaccinated or un-vaccinated--it implies that vaccinations are of little value. It leaves out the most important thing: The size and makeup of the pool of people in each group.
Possibly Eliot's explanation was as clear or clearer than my repeat, but we may hear the Fox message more often as the U.S. makes progress on getting people vaccinated. Head's up: if and when everyone is vaccinated, there will still be a very few people who get sick and die with COVID as a complication, and at that point everyone who dies will have been vaccinated. Don't be surprised when that gets reported. Vaccinations don't make people immortal. They do make people much less likely to get sick and die.