This thread is split off from the COVID thread for the discussion of booster efficacy against the omicron variant and whether or not boosted people are effective spreaders of SARS-CoV-2.
Yes, the data still seems to support that vaccines are really effective at preventing hospitalization and death, and are still somewhat effective at preventing infection. Earlier doomscrolling predictions about vaccine effectiveness being reduced to “basically nothing” against Omicron have not been borne out anywhere. This is good news.
Nothing you are saying is different from what I said. I mean other than quibbling over my use of “infection.” It is still unabashedly good news and evidence that the vaccines are still highly effective.
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You would agree with me that their effectiveness has not been reduced to “basically nothing,” correct?
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No. Against severe outcomes. You would agree with me that the two dose vaccines have not been reduced to “basically nothing,” correct? You concede that they are still highly effective at preventing hospitalization and death? That t-cell immunity appears to hold up?
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Well… Not everyone, but I agree you haven’t taken that position, which is why I said that you are not saying anything different from me.
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I feel like these results just demonstrate that this style of analysis is irretrievably broken by data quality issues. I mean this:
Overall, the age-adjusted vaccine effectiveness rate for new cases ended December at 77.8%, lower than where it started (80.9%)
Just doesn’t make any sense.
What’s your issue with that statement?
Well, it seems like the vaccine should work less well against the immune-escape variant than the non-escape variant.
I don’t disagree with this, but I’m still super confused what you’re trying to say with the quote you used and everything. No worries.
Ok, good talk.
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https://twitter.com/skllzdatklls/status/1480145976002289669
dis man taking a bunch of action on vaccines increasing chance of catching omicron.
the key here is compared to what.
There’s been a near pathological need to suggest that covid can’t spread in schools, despite the pattern of every other respiratory virus ever. This has been supported by awful science that relied on ignoring obvious confounding factors like how kids are less likely to get very ill and therefore tested.
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no. not doing this again, and no.
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seriously no. no thank you
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He means compared to being unvaccinated. FWIW both Denmark and I think Ontario showed solidly negative efficacy of vaccination vs Omicron infection in early data. This was probably because of networking effects, i.e. everyone I associate with irl is vaxxed and everyone they associate with is vaxxed, therefore if I were an index case, early spread would have the vaccinated highly over-represented.
I probably wouldn’t take the bet because vaccine efficacy vs infection is not very high and could easily get swamped by behavioural effects, eg how likely people are to get tested.
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Of course it does. But how you do that really matters for reasons you kind of get into. There’s zero percent chance there’s actual negative efficacy of the vaccine. The only way you get that number is if you do a stupid study.
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Any of this nuance you guys are talking about is unfortunately immediately lost on the American public. Representatives who yell, “DOES THE VACCINE WORK OR NOT YES OR NO” are cruising to victory
EDIT: But they are very important points
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This might be relevant to your interests:
I’m not sure I fully understand the details, but I think they’re finding that cases among fully vaccinated are ~40% less likely to transmit than unvaxxed cases (potentially due to lower viral load). This doesn’t speak directly to transmission among undetected infections, but seems reasonable to assume that the same result would hold, especially if the mechanism is viral load.