https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidvi...
There's a clear difference in hospitalization and death between the vaccinated and unvaccinated populations. You don't have to take the CDC's word for it - other countries can see the same thing in their numbers.
Calling getting the vaccine "an extremely inconvenient lifestyle" is silly.
(people that have covid and end up in the hospital) / (those who have covid)
Instead, we're looking at the ratio:
(vaccinated people who have covid and go to the hospital) / (unvaccinated people who have covid and go to the hospital)
Note that many people who end up the hospital either didn't know they were infected, or got infected there. And probably many of the people with COVID who go to the hospital don't actually need hospital levels of treatment. We have a tendency to overtreat with technology.
Getting a vaccine isnt inconvenient, except that it was: I spent an entire week unable to use my left arm and feeling very sick (and my doctor didn't care). But also there's a ton of other issues, like my kids not being able to go to school, stores closed, having to greatly limit travel, etc.
> You don't have to take the CDC's word for it - other countries can see the same thing in their numbers.
Any way you slice and dice the data comes up with the same answer; vaccination reduces hospitalization and death.
The best way to think about CDC press releases is that they not intended to be read by scientists. They are intended to guide good behavior and may not be 100% accurate in terms of medical/scientific knowledge.
Good examples here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/interactive/2022/omicr...
Screenshotted here due to paywall: https://imgur.com/a/gk73qDy
https://www.inquirer.com/health/coronavirus/covid-hospitaliz...
So, any evidence that contradicts your feeling will be dismissed?
> Second, there are more people being hospitalized in my area (which has high rates of vax) than there are unvaxxed people.
Sure. In a place with 100% vaccinated people, they would be all of the hospitalizations.
Relative proportions matter.
Just be aware: you're arguing with a scientist who worked for decades on medical biology who has, until recently, generally been quiet when seeing huge amounts of misleading medical knowledge trotted about to justify one procedure or another. I am always open to data and my "feelings" don't matter- except that most of the time, when I dig into the underlying claims, I find that they are misrepresented (usually unintentionally). So I use my own priors, and frankly, all I can say is that finding stats on a government page or a news article and using those to justify policy isn't convincing to scientists (and, it appears, the vast majority of the american public).
Ultimately, our public health people lost the PR war, and they did so through muddled messaging. Literally everything about vaccines has turned out to be less effective that public health leadership predicted, or claims. I'm not really surprised; I've commented many times on HN about how deeply challenging it is to do public health with a noncompliant population.
On the internet, no one knows you're a dog.
(I'm also glad the CDC employs more than just biologists, as statistics seems to be a fault here more than biology.)
> I wasn't talking in proportions, I meant absolutely.
Cool, so entirely pointless.
This popped into my inbox today: average daily cases, per-capita, for Seattle and NYC. Another clear distinction between the two populations. https://imgur.com/a/mjVxIhB
You can dismiss it as faked or rigged or manipulated again, but there's plenty of information out there to validate this sort of thing, and you don't have to take the US's word for it; other countries publish the same sort of information.
Ultimately I think you're not completely incorrect and I agree with teh directionality of what you're saying, but taken generally, the reality is that omicron does a much better job of infecting people (who were previously infected and have natural immunity, or who were vaccinated) and so much of this entire vaccine exercise has shown that we either need to move quickly/plan for regular 4-month updates (can you imagine trying to get everybody in the world to vaccinate every 4 months?) or maybe acknowledge that vaccination isn't the solution it was pitched as.
> At this point I don't really think that pointing at CDC public health releases is going to convince a scientist like me.
I just watched you move the goal posts in realtime.