Relative Risk Confusion Everywhere

I keep seeing the same error in the news: you're 25 times more likely to end up in the hospital if you're unvaccinated! It's due to a misunderstanding of relative vs. absolute risk.

From Pixabay.

For readers who aren't familiar with the concept, I've made a visual aid based on actual figures from Indiana:

Dates: April 15, 2021 through July 13, 2021
Hospitalizations due to COVID: 4,045
Percent of hospitalized COVID patients who were vaccinated: 2%
Population of Indiana: 6,500,000

Going by the high portion of unvaccinated COVID patients, it makes it sound like you're 50 times more likely to go to the hospital if you haven't had the shot. That's relative risk. If you're at a high risk of getting a bad case of COVID, that's meaningful. But if you aren't, you're reducing a tiny risk to a minuscule risk.

I didn't forget to add the first two columns--they just don't show up in the context of a population of 6.5 million. Likewise, the 655 people who've died over the past 90 days.

I'm not trying to make it seem trivial that people have died or gone to the hospital. Rather, it's to give a more realistic picture of risk. Doctors are often in the news or on YouTube telling about the horrors of COVID--but their perspective seems like it suffers from availability bias: they see suffering all day, and almost all of the suffering is among unvaccinated people. But they're homed in on a tiny group of people.

Imagine the homeless for a moment. The vast majority of them are men. If you're a man, would you take an experimental medication that could help you avoid becoming homeless--maybe a medication that makes people more conscientious? It might be worth it for someone at high risk of becoming homeless, but again, for most it would reduce a tiny risk to a minuscule one.

The focus has been on illness for the past 18 months to the exclusion of almost everything else. In a state that has the 14th highest deaths per capita, here's a graph of COVID numbers for those past 18 months.

The absolute risk of being hospitalized from COVID is less than 1% per year--more if you're older or unhealthy, less if you're younger or without health problems. Just something to think about if you're prodded to participate in the most hazardous vaccine rollout in memory. Serious side effects of COVID vaccines are rare, but they're not zero, and doctors don't to know how to treat some of them.

On a less serious note, the Babylon Bee understands relative vs. absolute numbers and even infinite numbers.

Sources:

https://www.regenstrief.org/covid-dashboard/

https://www.coronavirus.in.gov

Comments

My New Favorite Sweetener

If you're looking for a low-carb sweetener with no aftertaste, no franken-ingredients, and that doesn't upset your stomach, try monk fruit (also known as luo han guo). This is what Quest bars were sweetened with when they first came out. Monk fruit is Dr. Davis approved. You can buy monk fruit in powdered or liquid form; both are super-concentrated. They might seem expensive, but you use the powder by the spoonful (even in baking recipes) and the liquid by the drop. The baking recipes I've made with the powder have turned out well. Available from Amazon . Beware monk fruit sweeteners with erythritol. The package of powdered monk fruit sweetener I bought says, "Use 1/8 teaspoon to create the same sweet taste as 1 teaspoon of sugar." But it's so sweet that I use 1/10 the amount. To replace a cup of sugar, I would use 5 teaspoons of monk fruit sweetener. Tip: hand-stir this in before using the beaters. It's such a fine powder that it flies up and out of the ...

COVID Vax Mandate for Legal Immigrants Ends

From Townhall.com : During the Biden administration the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, the office that processes applications for legal immigration, implemented a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for individuals seeking to obtain a green card and eventually, American citizenship. They did not implement the same vaccine requirement for millions of illegal immigrants crossing into the U.S. from Mexico. Today and under new leadership from President Donald Trump, that requirement came to an end. "Effective January 22, 2025, USCIS waives any and all requirements that applicants for adjustment of status to that of a lawful permanent resident present documentation on their Form I-693, Report of Immigration Medical Examination and Vaccination Record, that they received the COVID-19 vaccination. USCIS will not issue any Request for Evidence (RFE) or Notice of Intent to Deny (NOID) related to proving a COVID-19 vaccination. USCIS will not deny any adjustment of status applicat...

Is the NIH Privately Helping Patients with COVID Vax Injuries?

In a recent letter from several attorneys general (AGs) demanding an explanation as to why so few vaccine-injured people have received so little compensation, the AGs asked a curious question: We have been told by constituents that NIH [National Institutes of Health] is privately helping patients across the country with COVID-19 vaccine–related injuries and is even bringing patients to NIH for study and treatment. Is that correct? Why have these activities not been better publicized? What sorts of studies of these patients is NIH currently conducting? What treatments is NIH administering? Photo from Pixabay . Most of the letter focused on compensation for COVID-19 vaccine injuries. As you know, vaccine manufacturers in the US have immunity from lawsuits, but people suffering from vaccine injuries can be compensated by the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP). But among the 10,000 COVID vaccine related claims, only 20 claimants have received compensation. "And but for...

Winning! Read some good news!

The good news keeps on coming. After four years of the country being in the biggest mess that most of us have lived through, it feels like spring is here early. The cold wind is refreshing, the snow is sparkling, and the days are getting longer. Photo from Pixabay . If you're getting this post by email, click here to see embedded videos from X. Trump bans the chemical and surgical mutilation of children in the name of "gender affirming care." This is just an executive order, which the next president could overturn; we need Congress to pass a law. The CIA admits COVID was mostly likely a lab leak after all. "The CIA analysis supporting lab origin of COVID was completed and published internally during the Biden administration. It was withheld from the public by the Biden Administration in violation of the COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023, which mandated release," said Richard H. Ebright on X. The CIA now says lab leak is the most likely explanation for COVID-19. R...

Soldiers who refused COVID shot reinstated

"TRUMP REINSTATES SERVICE MEMBERS EXPELLED OVER VACCINE MANDATES Trump signed an order reinstating military members dismissed for refusing COVID-19 vaccines, with full back pay. He also directed the military to end 'radical political theories and social experiments' within its ranks." The Associated Press said in 2023, "More than 8,400 troops were forced out of the military for refusing to obey a lawful order when they declined to get the vaccine. But yesterday, Trump said, "This week I will reinstate any service members who were unjustly expelled from our military for objecting to the COVID vaccine mandate with full back pay. @feds4freedomusa military fired for refusing Covid vaccine will be reinstated with full back pay! Thank you for your relentless work! pic.twitter.com/9PqnERhEnr — Callieopoly (@callieopoly) January 20, 2025 More executive orders from yesterday: "TRUMP ENDS GOVERNMENT CENSORSHIP The order directs agencies to cease any actions t...

Pain, Pain, Go Away!

Search This Blog