Comment by nanis | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nanis | Hacker News Reader

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> I think you put on your tinfoil hat by mistake there buddy.

Condescension is not helpful.

> Net breakthrough deaths, ..., is not a real metric.

What terminology would you recommend for getting the number of people who died from Covid19 after being fully vaccinated against Covid19?

>> Deaths† 1,587 (20%)

>> †341 (21%) of 1,587 fatal cases reported as asymptomatic or not related to COVID-19.

The numbers are from the most recent update to CDC's page[1].

So, "net breakthrough deaths" as I called them are 1,587 - 341 = 1,246.

> As of August 9, 2021, more than 166 million people in the United States had been fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

So, 1,246/166 = 7.5 breakthrough deaths per million vaccinated.

Since the CDC do not report these as a time series, but they just overwrite the most recent numbers, I linked to snapshots of the same page over time[2]. If there is an arithmetic error, I would like to know.

Now, if you look at the snapshot from April 30[3], the numbers are:

>> As of April 20, 2021, more than 87 million people in the United States had been fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

>> Deaths† 88 (1%)

>> †11 (13%) of the 88 fatal cases were reported as asymptomatic or not related to COVID-19.

So, the net breakthrough death rate is 0.9 per million fully vaccinated.

7.5/0.9 - 1 = 7.33

meaning a 733% increase in the rate.

[1]: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/health-departments/bre...

[2]: https://archive.ph/https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/hea...

[3]: https://archive.ph/DoRHj

> What terminology would you recommend for getting the number of people who died from Covid19 after being fully vaccinated against Covid19?

"Breakthrough deaths" not "Net breakthrough deaths"

Your post is flagged and unreadable now but I'm pretty sure you were claiming 8 million breakthrough deaths. That's obviously wrong because it's two times larger than the total number of deaths globally among all people.

> Since the CDC do not report these as a time series, but they just overwrite the most recent numbers, I linked to snapshots of the same page over time[2]. If there is an arithmetic error, I would like to know

Your error comes from failing to compare to the right control group. Vaccinated people have a tendency to be much higher risk than the unvaccinated. Notably, no children are in this group. You're getting fooled by bayes law here. The baseline risk of people who were vaccinated was on average much higher. 80% of people over 75 are vaccinated. Less than half of people under 30 are.

And on top of that are missing the bigger picture that the most conservative estimates I've seen suggest 79% of deaths are among the unvaccinated. Combine that with the previous statement about who is getting vaccinated and you have a very clear picture that vaccines are drastically helping reduce death rates.

Are you claiming this is good or bad?

By comparison, in some years the influenza vaccine is under 40% effective. 0.9 deaths per 1 million is amazing (especially given the likely age profile).

See https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20200902/how-effective-is-th... for some information about the flu vaccine.

In April the vaccination rate was much lower. In a hypothetical situation where 100% of people are vaccinated, all Covid deaths will be vaccinated people.

With so small numbers if vaccinated people dying we should expect that deaths per million to jump around depending on regional outbreaks for a while.

In addition, in April we didn’t have the delta variant in the US.

> Are you claiming this is good or bad?

Neither. In April, the rate of death from Covid19 among those fully vaccinated against Covid19 was 0.9/million.

By August 9, it was at 7.5/million. CDC used to provide updates every Friday for the preceding Monday. The rate increased with every report.

The last update was on August 13. So, I wondered why they had not updated on Friday this time.

I see now that they just posted an update since this thread started[1] and after the approval was announced. This will increase my posterior belief that the update had been held back to happen after the approval announcement for political reasons.

Total deaths: 1,829

Asymptomatic or not Covid19 related: 371

Rate (1,829 - 371)/168 = 8.7/million. Up again.

[1]: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/health-departments/bre...

> The rate increased with every report.

Delta is pretty bad isn't it?

I don't think this is news to anyone. There is increasing evidence that the length of protection vaccination gives is less than ideal - hence the need to booster shots.

> I see now that they just posted an update since this thread started[1] and after the approval was announced. This will increase my posterior belief that the update had been held back to happen after the approval announcement for political reasons.

It came out on a Monday instead of a Friday. There was zero evidence of any political interest in the date of the release of this data before, and there are thousands of potential explanations for any delay. But sure.

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