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This calculates the NNE which is similar to NNT: The Number Needed to Treat (NNT) is the number of patients you need to treat to prevent one additional bad outcome (death, stroke, etc.). For example, if a drug has an NNT of 5, it means you have to treat 5 people with the drug to prevent one additional bad outcome.

As a general rule of thumb, an NNT of 5 or under for treating a symptomatic condition is usually considered to be acceptable and in some cases even NNTs below 10.

https://www.uws.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Number_Needed...

There are drugs that are taken by millions with NNT in ~100s e.g., statin.
You are missing the point. This NNE is regarding whether mandating vaccine passport at gyms, restaurants has any benefit to reducing transmission.
I said nothing about NNE. My comment is point out that NNT <10 is too optimistic
I'm so confused by the math here, since the same authors in another paper find that the NNV (number needed to vaccinate) to prevent a transmission is less than 20, but the number needed to exclude is 100x higher.

My guess is that you can look at this over a time period: how many places do you go into in a (week/month/year) that you could not if you were unvaccinated. People can be vaccinated, but can be excluded many times. How many people are excluded by a single restaurant per week? At higher prevalence rates, this translates to like an infection prevented per restaurant per day or higher, and at lower rates, its a few per month.

Time periods kinda messes up these analyses because statistics is hard for a lot of people.

"Second, while risk over time is important, people are primarily concerned about the risk of getting infected with SARS- CoV-2 right now, not, for example, over the last 3 months."

The authors just kinda brush this aside. Their analyses are focused on singular events such as social gatherings, going to work, transportation, etc. Incase I'm not getting my point across, this is REALLY, REALLY STUPID, and I'd be embarrassed to publish this kind of analysis..

They also focus solely on the psychological harm of exclusion of unvaccinated people (very real consequences of serious mental and economic impacts to these people). Not actual harm of adverse reactions to the vaccines (effectively 0 actual harm), but make comparisons to drugs with considerably more side effects.

Not considering cumulative effects of even a single week on transmissibility radically skews their analysis. We don't do this in health and safety when death is on the line for a reason...

To put this another way, their analysis compares statins, a drug used to combat a constant exposure to heart-attack and stroke risk (from cholesterol), to a 1-8 hour singular event of exposure of unvaccinated people who may or may not have CoViD.

No Doctor I know would prescribe statins if you only had risk of heart-attack or stroke for a 1-8 hour event on a single day.

> effectively zero harm

What? There’s multiple studies showing the risk of a young boy between 16-24 developing myocarditis is higher than their risk of getting hospitalized from Covid. And this myocarditis risk rises based on the interval between first and second dose, rises for each dose, is even higher for Moderna.

Also for men under 40, the risks of developing myocarditis from the shots is higher than the risk of myocarditis from Covid.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.23.21268276v...

Is makes absolutely no sense to mandate the shots for any young person, especially if they are fit and healthy.

Do you even know what myocarditis is?

Do you understand that even young people are 100 times more likely to suffer from CoViD-19 induced myocarditis than from the vaccine?

Here’s a Nature article explaining the risks of it:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41569-021-00662-w

Stop reading social media and antivax propaganda before you get someone killed with your ignorance.

And if they've already had COVID, let's just vax vax vax anyway? I'd rather take my chances with busymom's ignorance than the CDC's knowledge.
Unless you have specific knowledge that someone is ignorantly passing on an active infection I urge you to quit making accusations about death related to stochastic events, its pointlessly inflammatory and quite baseless.
Read her posts and linked studies. Every single one is a misrepresentation or misinterpretation or misquote.
I do not think you read the study I linked to in my comment. Men under 40 are more likely to suffer from vaccine induced myocarditis than from the infection. Your linked article does a population average and not specifically for men under 40.

Please stop using inflammatory language like you did at the end of your comment.

Something like 95% of people who get myocarditis from the vaccine will have it resolve on their own in a month. There have been 8 myocarditis related vaccine deaths total. Further, myocarditis isn't the only risk from covid (not is death), so your overall risk of serious (long term) complications is higher from covid than the vaccine.

I'm I man under 30, and got my (Moderna) booster. It was an easy choice.

It being an easy choice for you has nothing to do with whether it should be mandated for everyone.

You are making bald speculative comments about long term complications when the vaccines have had zero long term studies.

Myocarditis is not a non serious issue. We are talking about heart inflammation of young and healthy people who have negligible risks from Covid.

In Ontario, 70% of myocarditis required hospitalization.

When there’s a risk, there must be a choice.

> Myocarditis is not a non serious issue. We are talking about heart inflammation of young and healthy people who have negligible risks from Covid.

Myocarditis that resolves itself in a month is not a long term serious issue.

> when the vaccines have had zero long term studies.

Yes they have. Or do you mean irrelevant decade long studies that are incapable of detecting anything due to how the vaccines work? The vaccine will fully exit your system after only a few days, leaving only the spike protein. In other words, any impact from the vaccine after a week or so will be strictly less severe than covid.

> In Ontario, 70% of myocarditis required hospitalization

The only data I can find related to Ontario is actually a us CDC source that agrees with me going further and saying that 95% of the myocarditis that resulted in hospitalizations fully resolved in under a week. That is to say, 95% of serious vac related myocarditis resulted in no long term impacts.

> When there’s a risk, there must be a choice.

And unvaccinated people pose a greater risk to everyone else. What's our choice? What choice do people who have a heart attack or need surgery on a tumor get when hospitals are full of disproportionately many umvaxxed covid patients.

Excluding unvaccinated people has nothing to do with preventing disease. Ever since the wide availability of effective vaccines last summer, the purpose of most Covid restrictions is to expand the surveillance state and compel obedience to the pharma-government alliance.
Looks like you got downvoted by the HN mob for stating an unpopular opinion. To an extent I don’t disagree with you. The CDC’s recent changes were obviously forced on them to encourage more people to work or go out and spend.
I think most people can agree that it has nothing to do with preventing the disease, but there will be a smorgasbord of educated and uneducated guesses about the real purpose of vaccine passports.

You might even say digital passports are just an evolution of humanity, the disease is irrelevant, and they will be repurposed afterwards.

Say like to discourage bad behaviour (social credit score passport), passport passport (to control and track movement), carbon passport (to track individual emissions), internet passport (to prevent viewing of things deemed to lead to extremism), privilege and adversity passport (to compare victimhood and oppressor status and advance equity)

Etc etc.

I think my point is that all passports are bad for the individual, and if we accept passports, we will be stuck with a passport for every single social issue of the day. A permenant scorecard.

I agree that the end result is an expansion of the surveillance state. I don't think it is all that coordinated, just a bunch of miscellaneous opportunists, all following their own incentives, all converging on a common narrative.. a decentralized 'conversation' among people that stand to gain.
This is an extremely unintuitive result.
I think it has something to do with when the data analyzed is from: the nadir of the delta wave, before omicron. They mention a low base transmission rate, which is very much no longer applicable, and say the results are applicable to China, Australia, Israel, and other countries (where the virus is/was largely suppressed). Its applicability to the US right now seems very limited at best.
The author stated in an interview yesterday that with Omicron and waning effectiveness, the NNE raises even higher:

https://youtu.be/wAI4GSzTYTU

The 1000 figure from his study is the lower bound.

The vaccination status of Australia (~93% vaccinations 12+) suggest that vaccines don't do anything practical to slow the spread of omicron. It seems to be vaccinated individuals infecting vaccinated individuals.

All the anti-anti-vax efforts seem to be a bit futile. It makes the current brouhaha over Djokovic is just silly - he's more at risk from Australians than Australians are for him. I'm double vaccinated and still probably going to get COVID in the next month and there isn't even going to be a good tennis match to watch while I'm coughing and sneezing. What is the justification of this sillyness now?

As of the latest data in the US for vaccinated people re: Omicron:

You're 13x less likely to land in the hospital.

You're 45x less likely to die.

It's gone from being 10-20x more deadly than the flu to half as deadly with the vaccine. And Omicron hasn't peaked yet in the U.S., these numbers are likely conservative.

Last I checked you had 1/14th the population and 1/30th the deaths we had. You got the vaccine later than we did, hit 93% vaccination rate while we're STILL below 65%.

Australia took things way more seriously than we did, maybe a bit "too conservatively" for your taste, but the alternative I live in is that 2 aunt's funerals were over zoom (pre vaccine), and my I'm waiting for my 63 yr old uncle (anti-vax) who had a heart attack 3 years ago, is obese, been a lifelong smoker, and just got CoViD to recover.

> You're 13x less likely to land in the hospital. > You're 45x less likely to die.

So? Why should that inconvenience me? They are adults and have the privilege of living their lives how they want as long as they bear their own consequences. This strategy seems to be they face all those risks anyway and we make sure their lives are miserable for no obvious reason. That is cruel to them and also stupid.

These people presumably pay their taxes, it isn't like there is an unfair burden on everyone else. If there is, charge them a fee when they get to hospital or take it out of their estate if they die. If people want to take sill risks, let them.

I don't think you understood what I said.

Being vaccinated results in those outcomes. Not your lockdowns.

Your lockdowns only resulted in 50% less deaths than our mismanagement.

You're right, we shouldn't be inconvenienced by a death cult of anti-science morons.

You don't have to be because your country made better decisions than mine.

'You're 45x less likely to die.'

I'm surprised at how you could determine 45x without knowing the age or co-morbidities of the person posting. Particularly concerning is that a young person in good health has little chance of dying, and the 45x comment may be wildly wrong.

Because, and I'm just guessing, he's younger the 65 if he's posting on HN?

And, well because all of the actual data keeps proving that the unvaccinated are at orders of magnitude higher risk than vaccinated across all age groups.

https://azdhs.gov/covid19/documents/data/rates-of-cov-19-by-...

Here’s the data for rate per 100000 of hospitalizations+icu & death broken down into age groups for the entire 2 years of the pandemic in my province of Ontario Canada:

https://i.redd.it/qa9rj48mf6a81.jpg

The risks for anyone young is so negligible that it makes absolutely no sense to mandate the shots like my government has done.

Overall, looking at stats, I see that unless you are elderly, obese or have health conditions, the risks for young, fit and healthy are negligible. 90% of COVID-19 deaths in 2020 had at least one other comorbidity, 65% had two or more comorbidities and 46% had three or more comorbidities:

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/210514/dq210...

US studies show that most COVID-19 hospitalizations occurred due to four conditions - obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and heart failure and 64% of the hospitalizations could have been prevented if not for the four conditions.

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/most-co...

Clearly, a young 30 year old being unvaccinated makes no difference to hospitals. But an elderly 75 year old being unvaccinated does make a difference. However, at that age, I am really doubtful they are unvaccinated by choice and more so because they have medical reason for not being vaccinated. I know an elderly with cancer who can't get vaccinated due to his immune system issues.

It makes absolutely no sense to mandate shots for kids or anyone young.

I don’t think you understand statistics, herd immunity, viral reservoirs, how comorbidities work, or genetic mutation of viruses.

It makes no sense to not get a free vaccine that is now the safest most tested medication in human history that can prevent the spread and continued mutation of the most deadly pandemic virus in 100 years.

Edit:

To reiterate. You do not seem to understand your own sources you provide. You have twisted every article you link to provide justification of not getting vaccines when they literally all state the risks from the vaccines are lower than the risks from CoVID-19, that while the vaccines do not provide absolute herd immunity they do slow the spread and reduce the risk of hospitalization and death.

Your argument about myocarditis is inane given that young men are 100 times more likely to suffer it if they get CoViD-19.

Your argument that the vaccine isn’t preventative is nonsense as it clearly prevents death and hospitalization over non-vaccination across all age groups.

Your interpretation of this paper doesn’t understand that statistical analysis is highly flawed in comparing other treatments for continuous exposure disease to the singular event exposure is absurd on its face.

Please, get off Facebook, Reddit, or whatever other “mom” groups you’re in and go talk to an actual Immunologist and virus/vaccine researcher to help you better understand these things you’re so passionately ignorant about.

You do know that the developer of the AstraZeneca shots himself stated in august 2020 that these shots cannot achieve herd immunity because they allow infection and transmission and are merely a potential severe symptom mitigator which wane drastically in 3-6 months? He even warned policy makers to not make policies based on achieving herd immunity from these shots.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/12/herd-immunity-is-mythical-wi...

Viral load is the same between vaccinated vs unvaccinated folks as shown by several studies now. In many cases, it’s even higher in vaccinated folks.

When a shot doesn’t prevent infection, that also means it allows mutations to occur in the vaccinated person which created immune escape variants more likely.

You are conflating these shots with more traditional shots. The purpose of those traditional vaccines are to PREVENT infection and transmission. Smallpox, polio, measles etc vaccines all stop infection and transmission.

Also those vaccines are long term tested for many decades. Smallpox vaccines are 200 years old.

Smallpox, polio, measles etc also have severe problems to the person who gets them including kids.

The COVID shots neither prevent infection and transmission, not have they been long term tested. And COVID is negligible for kids and youth unless you are obese or have pre-existing conditions (in which case, the COVID shots also aren't much effective).

These shots should never have been called a “vaccine” because they do it fit the definition of a vaccine as they don’t prevent infection. Legal definition of a vaccine is:

> The term “vaccine” means any substance designed to be administered to a human being for the prevention of 1 or more diseases.

Notice the word “prevention”. Covid shots don’t do that.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/4132

Nearly every vaccine in human history has some level of escape or immunized infection rate. Flu, polio, MMR. They're all vaccines

Covid vaccines do prevent (not all, but some) transmission and prevent (not all, but many) serious infections. This is the same as pretty much every other vaccine out there.

Covid vaccines are still very effective if you have preexisting conditions.

You're spreading lies, please don't do that.

Accusing me of lying while you are doing that is ironic. Covid vaccines do not prevent transmission. Ontario is 77% vaccinated but over 81% of cases are vaccinated. Even the rate of hospitalizations is now almost the same between the vaccinated vs unvaccinated here in Ontario.

That is not the same as real effective vaccines like polio measles etc which prevent transmission and infection. Polio disappeared as more and more vaccinations occurred. Covid on the other hand has not and will not disappear. And why take my word for it when you can literally listen to the word of the vaccine developers themselves who say these shots will not achieve herd immunity and Covid is here to stay.

Flu shots fail because of the mismatch and how fast it mutates.

If you are willing to call something which does not prevent infection and transmission a “vaccine” then there’s no difference between a vaccine and a therapeutic.

You are willing to conflate these shots with traditional vaccines without questioning whether these shots fit the definition of a vaccine. By simply calling any drug a vaccine, you are doing a major disservice to the real actually effective vaccines.

> Ontario is 77% vaccinated but over 81% of cases are vaccinated

77% fully vaccinated, 84% partially vaccinated. So yeah, lower. (By around 20% once you do the math)

> Even the rate of hospitalizations is now almost the same between the vaccinated vs unvaccinated here in Ontario.

No, it's like 6x lower.

Edit: Ah, I was looking at ICU numbers. Hospitalization rates, today, are similar. However, if Ontario is anything like other places hit by omnicron, the vaccinated patients will be out of the hospital in under a week, and the unvaccinated ones will remain longer and face more complications. So come back and see how things look in a week or two.

> By simply calling [a vaccine] a vaccine, you are doing a major disservice to the real actually effective vaccines.

No, I'm rejecting your antivax nonsense. Trying to say "no this isn't a vaccine so I'm not really antivax" is the trick you're trying to pull and I won't let you lie about that.

> So yeah, lower.

Not sure what math you are doing. In fact, as of today, 83% of Ontario's cases are vaccinated while 78% of the population is vaccinated with cases being at an all time high for the past month.

> No, it's like 6x lower.

No it's not. As of today 71% of hospitalizations in Ontario are fully vaccinated. The rate per 100k for unvaccinated is 16.01, 11.66 for fully vaccinated and 12.88 for partially vaccinated.

So 16.01 / 11.66 = 1.4.

In Toronto, 77% of hospitalizations are fully vaccinated.

> No, I'm rejecting your antivax nonsense. Trying to say "no this isn't a vaccine so I'm not really antivax" is the trick you're trying to pull and I won't let you lie about that.

Please don't bother replying as you are more interested in inflammatory language than stating facts.

Too bad Covid moves so fast that the papers are already outdated. Interesting methodology but the actual number conclusion is heavily dependent on case rates so the top line number conclusions are rather out dated until cases come down drastically.
I’m not an expert on this so could someone explain how if secondary attack is defined like this google search gave me form another paper:

>” Secondary attack rate (SAR) is the probability that an infection occurs among susceptible persons within a reasonable incubation period after known contact with an infectious person in household or other close-contact environments.”

Explain how the nne calc doesn’t need to account for the number of people in the situation. Is there other better or more clear definitions? Or Should the base rate be adjusted to account for number of people?

My other question is, is the NNE about unique excluded people or is it just unique excluded visits. I.e a single person is excluded from eating at a restaurant at lunch and then again at dinner, does that count for 2 of the 1000?

The paper considers normalized/averaged single event exposure for their analysis and compares it to continuous exposure of other drugs and vaccines to make their case.

It's embarrassingly flawed analysis.

I somehow doubt this will have an political impact. Science gets ignored if you can make easy statements for the masses that see not vaccinated people as the enemy. It gives them a sense of control and security.

I think this would also make any mandate pretty much superfluous if you disregard personal security.