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Comment by bananabiscuit | Hacker News Reader

Except right there in the report they list the vaccine coverage for Massachusetts to be at 69% (out of the “eligible” population, implying I’m that number is somewhat less for the total population). If 74% of positive COVID tests come from vaccinated people, then we’re already in “being vaccinated is worse than not” territory. Not saying that’s the necessarily the correct conclusion, but it’s something that definitely needs some kind of explanation and shouldn’t be hastily brushed away.

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1) People who are vaccinated are more likely to get tested.

2) People who are vaccinated are more likely to be in positions where they are exposed to COVID (remember who got vaccines first?).

3) People who are vaccinated are probably more likely to be around other people in general because they are at low risk of severe COVID reactions and are following guidelines (multiple state health officials: if you're fully vaccinated, it's ok to not wear a mask).

I don't see why this is a story.

This is a story because it is showing something is wrong. This data implies that the vaccine isn’t effective enough to drop precautions. Vaccinated people need to know that and guidelines need to be adjusted, lest they become bigger spreaders than the unvaccinated, as this data is implying.

At the very least, this data needs to be very carefully followed up on.

I don't agree that the data imply that.

If 100% of people are vaccinated, 100% of covid infections will be among vaccinated people. In MA, ~70% of people are vaccinated. Vaccination rates are higher in some places. Given this, it's not surprising that most infections in certain places are among vaccinated people. The absolute number and how sick people are getting have to be considered as well.

The data does not at all imply that something is wrong or that we need to do more than is already being done. Vaccines are not 100% effective and we were never going to prevent infections entirely. The only real issue here is that way too many people are refusing to get vaccinated so that infections are still having a large impact on the population as a whole. Among people who are vaccinated, severe complications from COVID are extremely rare.

People need to stop thinking about COVID as a disease like polio that we can relatively easily eradicate, and more like a bad flu that we simply coexist with even though annual vaccines are widely available.

There are some blind areas. You are not counting people that weren't tested, or, people in different categories that were exposed but didn't got the disease, or people that got the disease previously, but it was asymptomatic or with mild enough symptoms to be noticed.

If 100 unvaccinated people (that really didn't got the vaccine) get exposed in the same way than 100 vaccinated people, the numbers that will get infected would be the same?

To stir up controversy. New outlets need any kind of story to stay relavent

There are skewing factors here.

Kids under 12 are 100% unvaccinated at the moment, for example. People who are anti-vaccine may have a tendency to also avoid testing. etc.

In the US, under 400 kids below the age of 18 have died from Covid since the beginning of the Pandemic. Many had comorbidities as severe as leukemia. What is the case for exposing them to the greater risk presented by the vaccine, when it has been shown that vaccinated adults will still get Covid either way?

Edit: And just like that, the CDC link has been flagged for presenting inconvenient information. Talk about a cult.

> What is the case for exposing them to the greater risk presented by the vaccine...

They tend to live with adults.

> it has been shown that vaccinated adults will still get Covid either way?

This hasn't actually been shown, at least not anywhere near as universally as you're portraying. Breakthroughs were expected; what we won't know for a while (and is subject to change) is how common they are.

The 69% figure is out of “eligible” people according to the report. As children aren’t eligible, I’d think they aren’t included in the denominator.

Your hypothesis about anti-vaxxers being hesitant to go test is definitely promising, but having a hypothesis alone isn’t enough, this kind of stuff needs to be looked into and not ignored/labeled conspiracy theories as it so often does.

Edit: just realized that even if the 69% was out of the entire population, that would still imply (on the surface) that being vaccinated is worse than not, since COVID doesn’t discriminate about who it spreads to which makes the whole population eligible to get it.

> The 69% figure is out of “eligible” people according to the report.

The vaccinated population is still skewed elderly, and the elderly are more likely to become “cases” than younger people in the same vaccination status. The population isn't a homogeneous blob.

I interpret this to be due to large scale gatherings or reduced mask and social distancing combined with a more aggressive variant.

To me, your comment read like being vaccinated itself is some disadvantage to the infection rate, is that how you intended it?

I intend to point that that that is what the data in this report implies at a surface level. I think that alone makes it very important for professionals to carefully follow up on this data. The worst thing to do would be to brush this away and ignore it.

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