dndrich The public has such difficult understanding these numbers, because we all know people who are vaccinated who got COVID, myself included. The purpose of vaccination is to reduce morbidity and mortality to large populations. In some people it will prevent disease, but not all. This has been wildly successful. Areas where vaccination rates are low and masking is low have very poor outcomes. We have this in California where the “Red” counties have mortality rates more than double the “Blue” areas even adjusted for morbidity of the population. It is sad that it degenerates into a tribal or political group, rather than a true public health response.
Furthermore, this notion of somehow reducing or weakening the “immune system” is such an odd lay notion. Which part? Helper T cells? B cells? Interferon? The immune response of a human is remarkably complicated as it has been evolved over millions of years. It is so reductive to say something like it “weakens the immune system”. This is internet nonsense from a scientifically illiterate population
Can’t help but agree and it’s not just the public that get fooled by statistics and studies!
I remember when we were learning about vaccination (treatment) effectiveness offset against risk factors and how to judge. There were many factors to consider and the answer is not always obvious.
E.g A study back in the 70s I think it was concluded the Oral contraceptive pill increased the risk of breast cancer and scared the population witless, with many women coming off the pill.
Of course there was a problem of interpretation and failure to consider multiple factors when assessing true risk.
- Having children reduces the risk of breast cancer, this was not accounted for.
- Pregnancy carries risk factors itself.
- For certain people with medical conditions, being pregnant may carry huge risk. The pill may increase compliance vs other methods. Thus the true risk was lower than condoms, or IUDs
So what does this mean; the newspapers and internet aren’t a great source, unless your intellectually equipped, with the necessary experience and access to all the data to understand what the true risk is. Even the medical profession don’t always know (although they usually know a lot more than a lay person and sooner). I’m thinking of Thalidomide (Dilversan) here.
People must make their own judgements I guess, but if GPs you know are getting vaccinated, you probably should take their advice. In my experience GPs are even more concerned when they get ill than nonmedical people🤣