Last week, Dr. Fauci spoke on Meet The Press about the urgent importance of being fully vaccinated against Covid-19. He said specifically that 99.2% of American Covid deaths in June 2021 were among the not-fully-vaccinated:
“If you look at the number of deaths, about 99.2 percent of them are unvaccinated. About 0.8 percent are vaccinated. No vaccine is perfect. But when you talk about the avoidability of hospitalization and death, Chuck, it's really sad and tragic that most all of these are avoidable and preventable,” Fauci told host Chuck Todd on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
A quick check online says that an average of 342 Americans died of Covid each day in June 2021, for a total of 10,260. Fauci’s ratio above would mean that 10,178 of these dead became seriously, mortally ill while unvaccinated or incompletely vaccinated; just 82 of them became seriously and mortally ill while fully vaccinated. Annualized, this would be 984 vaccinated Covid deaths a year in America.
By contrast, the flu kills 20,000 to 60,000 Americans a year. If these numbers were to hold, then if you are fully vaccinated, then your mortality risk from the flu vs coronavirus is approximately somewhere between 20:1 and 60:1.
Now, understood, there are major and disturbing differences between the flu and coronavirus:
- The Delta variant is poised to increase these annual mortality numbers significantly (we can’t yet estimate how much)
- Coronavirus seems to cause longer-lasting damage and suffering in many of its patients; an estimated 10 to 19% of medical patients with Covid end up being “long haulers” who still have some symptoms several months afterward. (Note, this is 10 to 19% of Covid patients; not 10 to 19% of everyone who gets infected with the virus)
- All of this is very “young” information and subject to change; Covid-19 has only been in wide circulation among us for 18 months or so.
Even still… I’m getting troubled by the alarmist, clickbaity headlines both in the mainstream media and on this site.
CNN’s lead story today claims that “up to 30% of children infected with coronavirus will go on to develop long-haul covid.” Holy SHIT.
But how can that be remotely true? 4 million children in the USA have tested positive for coronavirus since the start of the pandemic. Of these, only about half of them even have had any symptoms at all; the vast majority of the rest have had very quick-passing symptoms. How can this possibly lead to 30% of all infected children having long-haul covid, when only 10 to 19% of adult patients of covid (that’s patients, not all adults ever infected) experience long-haul covid?
When you dig into the frightening CNN story, you learn that CNN loosely quoted a vaccinologist at Baylor College of Medicine who said something vague in an interview with Anderson Cooper.
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Here on DailyKos, one diary on the Trending List today has a title that cries out about a “Juvenile Covid Storm Surge.” This sounds absolutely terrifying.
It turns out that there are a total of 7 minors (under 18) in the State of Mississippi who are in the ICU with coronavirus, and 2 of them are on life support. This is an increase from 1 month ago; it’s back up to where it was 2 or 3 months ago; but still 70-80% down from the January 2021 peak.
Mississippi has the highest rate of child poverty in America (estimated at 28%). Malnutrition is an epidemic of its own. And Mississippi is the lowest-vaccinated State in the US, which means there’s that much more transmission going on in general. Not to dismiss the tragedy of seven of Mississippi’s 700,000 children (or 1 child in 100,000) being in the ICU with severe Covid. But is this a “juvenile storm surge”? (In defense of the diarist, multiple media outlets are also using the term “surge” when reporting on the 7 children in Mississippi ICUs.)
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Yesterday on DailyKos, another Trending List diary about “visible signs of the next COVID wave” said that
“Prior to Delta’s arrival as people dropped their masks, Pfizer-vaccinated folks only had a 1.8% chance of catching COVID and dying. Now that’s 7%, and I expect that number to grow.”
Again, wait, wait. Back up 3 spaces. If you are vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine, you do not have a 7% chance of dying from Covid. Here’s what is true: In some places, recent reports say that up to 7% of the symptomatic cases of Covid are happening in fully vaccinated people. But it is wildly inaccurate to attempt an inversion on that math. You can’t logically say, “well, then that means if you’re vaccinated you have a 7% chance of getting Covid”— that’s not how statistical data works. And you cannot go next-level histrionic and say “that means Pfizer-vaccinated people have a 7% chance of dying from Covid.”
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I’m concerned as well. I’m paying attention. Brooklyn got decimated in Spring 2020, and the 24/7 sirens and pervading sense of dread are still in my dreams at night. Spouse and I were fully vaccinated in March/April.
But. BUT. Can we — and I’m speaking of us the fully vaccinated — can we temper this valid anxiety and fear with some clear-eyed realism about data and risk? Can we watch out for clickbait fear-triggering titles and headlines? And can we remember that the goal is not to eradicate Covid, but to get it down to a level comparable to other diseases that we have long lived with without shutting down our lives.
Professor Emily Oster (Statistics/Economics) of Brown University has spent the past year attempting to do that; to translate what the experts know into data-based guideposts for trying to make sense of how to actually live your life during this pandemic. Her website CovidExplained is impressive. Her updates via Substack are even better. I’m a huge fan — she strikes, for me, the right balance between valid concern and dispassionate data analysis.
Here is Prof. Oster’s recent Substack on Children and the Covid-19 Delta Variant. It’s superb reading and, as a parent of a young child, I found it a really helpful way to think about it all.
A prominent piece in New York Magazine yesterday argues that “the kids are fine and they always were”with respect to coronavirus. That, too, seems a bit extreme and simplistic and inaccurate. The truth is in between that and valid concern, but the details in the NYMag piece are accurate; there is no massive tsunami of sickness bearing down on our nation’s youth. There just isn’t, and there won’t be.
We will each need to find, for ourselves, the right philosophical balance and compass-point between living our lives fully and staying safe from possible coronavirus infection. For some, that will mean prioritizing self-protection. For others it will mean tipping more toward living life unmasked, seeking and getting a Pfizer booster shot/update when it comes this Fall, and assuming that — as a fully vaccinated adult with no significant health issues/risks — that a case of Covid-19, if it were to happen in your fully vaccinated body, will very likely be mild or even asymptomatic.
Neither philosophical choice — reasonable extra caution or vaccinated reasonable confidence -- is absolutely wrong.
What will be unhelpful is continued Doom headlines and diary titles that are not accurately supported by facts. They are designed to slap you in the amygdala. Don’t let them.
Thanks.