Gigem_94 said:
Then link to sources - Twitter and some reporter regurgitating what so and so said doesn't count. Too many people make blanket assertions with no fact. Maybe you are right but can't know without support.
Put this off as I wasn't around my computer yesterday, plus this isn't really enjoyable for me as it is a lot of work. And, let's face it, we probably aren't changing any minds at this point. I'd much prefer OP and is ilk apply more critical thinking about fear porn news reports, but I know that isn't going to happen. I guess a few ways I want to respond to his both indirectly and directly.
First - while there is a lot of garbage to sort through, I'm not sure why twitter "doesn't count". There are some extremely qualified people on twitter for reviewing scientific literature, many of whom are willing to show their work in critique of literature. If you are willing to apply critical thought when filtering what is and isn't worthwhile information there is lots of good stuff out there. But, regardless, I'll keep twitter out of it. There are certainly also problems taking reporter regurgitation at face value as well. The original link in this thread does just that and is pretty typical of the hit-and-run link posting from this OP, and I assume you are equally critical of that.
Sources that support this study should be taken with skepticism:- https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-10928-z. The study itself. Note editor's notes on top and bottom: Readers are alerted that the conclusions of this article are subject to criticisms that are being considered by the Editors. A further editorial response will follow once all parties have been given an opportunity to respond in full.. While this isn't damning at this point, a public admission that criticism is being reviewed by the editors isn't a good sign and is potentially the first step to a retraction or correction. It minimum it means the editors believe there is enough potential validity of the criticisms that it warrants a closer look. It will be interesting to watch where this goes.
- https://osf.io/zj4xr/ Here is a preprint rebuttal pointing out a number of issues with the study including criticism of the statistical methods used and of the suitability of the source data to reach conclusions. Sure, it's preprint, but it's a pretty strong case made by a group of authors that appear qualified to perform this analysis
But honestly, my bigger problem is the way these news outlets spin the story and the way it gets presented here. In OP's original link:
Further, the general line of thought on some of this stuff just confuses me on how people are reaching conclusions that vaccines are so terrible. One thing in the study that is probably indisputable is that cardiac arrest related EMS calls increased by ~25% in January-May 2021 compared to January-May 2019 for ages 16-39. There is no doubt that this sucks, but let's take emotion out of it and look at it from a risk perspective. The actual number of cardiac arrest related calls in this time period in 2019 was 142, in 2021 it was 191. So, an absolute increase of 49. This is out of a population of 3.5 million for this age group. So, from a rate perspective an increase of about 1 call for every 70,000 young adults riding on a baseline of about 1 in 25,000 cardia arrest calls. In percentages, this is a change from roughly .004% to .005%. For ACS events the numbers are higher (increase to .023% or 1 in 4430 compared to baseline of 0.018% or 1 in 5600).
Many of the same people who harp on how harmful the vaccines are also like to justify how statistically insignificant COVID is as part of the justification why vaccines are unnecessary. I'm trying not to spend a lot of time on this, but in a quick google search I found some data published by the state of Washington regarding COVID hospitalization levels and deaths that I think are useful to compare to (
https://doh.wa.gov/sites/default/files/2022-02/421-010-CasesInNotFullyVaccinated.pdf). The age groups don't quite line up with those in the study referenced by OP, but they have figures for the 12-34 y.o. group which should be overall less impacted than the 16-39 y.o. group. Per Washington's data, the rate of COVID hospitalizations for unvaccinated 12-34 y.o. is 19.1 per 100,000 population basis. This comes to 1 in 5236 from this age group being hospitalized from COVID at some point. This is similar in magnitude to the ACS values above, but remember those numbers are already riding on a baseline of 1 in 5600. So, individuals in this age group are much more likely to be hospitalized from COVID than they are to have a CA or ACS related emergency call due to getting a vaccine if we assume causality from the study's results. Yeah, this is oversimplified and there are lots of ways to poke at the numbers (what exactly is a COVID hospitalization or death?) but I think still gets the point across that a lot of folks aren't rationalizing rates for vaccine injuries in the same way they do harm from COVID. Other interesting things from Washington's report is that unvaccinated individuals in this range are 3.6 more times likely to be hospitalized from COVID compared to vaccinated. I can't imagine their definition of a COVID hospitalization is all that different between these groups and a 260% increase seems pretty relevant if we think a 25% raise in cardiovascular events after vaccination is also relevant.
Nobody is asking for it, but my own position is that all of the rates above are low enough I don't worry about it other than getting worked up when people misrepresent facts or manage to completely be disconnected with how they evaluate vaccine risk vs covid risk. I'm not trying to convince anyone to get vaccines and fully support that as a personal decision. My kids aren't vaccinated and I have no current plans to vaccinate them as the difference between two very low numbers is insignificant enough to me that I don't care. I might reevaluate in the future if a more severe strain comes around and a matching vaccine is available. I'm 40 and had two shots of Moderna and still caught COVID (omicron). I have no problems with my decision and would do it again if faced with the same choices on the same timeline. My dad and brother both wound up hospitalized with pneumonia in the alpha/delta period which was enough to convince me that in my situation at that time it made clear sense. If I was unvaccinated today I would probably remain so as I don't think the benefit offered by current vaccines against omicron predominance is worth it to me from a risk or effort standpoint.
