The following is not a response to any prior posts in this thread.
Despite the decline in preventing infections, according to latest CDC data (age-adjusted) the unvaccinated are still about five times more likely to test positive.
>>>Covid-19 vaccines remain highly effective at keeping people alive and out of the
hospital, but new U.S. data add further support to the argument that the shots aren’t preventing infections as much as they once did.
Unvaccinated people were about five times more likely to test positive for the virus than the vaccinated in the week starting Sept. 26, down from about 15 times less likely in May, according to the latest age-adjusted
data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which were updated Monday.<<<
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Covid-19 vaccines remain highly effective at keeping people alive and out of the hospital, but new U.S. data add further support to the argument that the shots aren’t preventing infections as much as they once did.
news.bloombergtax.com
data.cdc.gov
Decline? Yes.
Zero? No.
From what I see on social media, there seems to be a narrative among vaccine skeptics to the effect that breakthrough cases show that vaccines are ineffective with regards to preventing infection (This is just a general observation, it is not directed at any specific comments in this thread). However, the issue is obviously not a simple "100% effective" or "100% ineffective."
Even if it had been asserted that vaccines are 100% effective (a straw man), effectiveness less than 100% would still not prove "100% ineffective" and it would also not follow that there's no evidence showing that vaccines are effective.
It would be nice if we lived in an imaginary world with a choice that is 100% effective at preventing infection, but we don't. Given the choices here in the real world right now I'd take 5 to 1, even if preventing infection was the only criteria.
Here are some recent hospitalization numbers from the University of Michigan Health system:
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Patient and employee COVID-19 data at Michigan Medicine including inpatient count and a graph showing inpatients organized by vaccination status and existence of underlying condition, as well as employee vaccination data.
www.uofmhealth.org
The numbers for Spectrum Health and Henry Ford appear to be similar:
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How can COVID-19 be surging again in Michigan when more than five million people in the state have been fully vaccinated? Millions of others remain unvaccinated. Statewide data show the overwhelming majority of hospitalizations and deaths are being driven by people who haven't gotten the vaccine.
www.michiganradio.org
It appears to me that about 54% of the population in Michigan is fully vaccinated:
View attachment 51729
Even rounding this down to 50% it's clear that one's odds of being hospitalized, being in an ICU, and being on a vent are much higher if one is not vaccinated.
Again, the vaccines are not 100% effective with regards to hospitalization, but it does not follow that they are 100% ineffective when compared to the alternative. The odds strongly favor vaccination.
It would be interesting to know how many (if any) of the unvaccinated in these hospitals were previously infected but I have not seen any data on this.
