We are approaching the limits of empiricism.
Or are the trials being conducted clandestinely?
An imperfect but reasonable study is not an excuse to throw everything out and jump to your own conclusions.
There is no reason to believe there is a large group of people who behaved as if covid were not dangerous and who also felt an urgent need to take the vaccine. The existence of such a group of people is vital to whether or not data can be used to make these claims about the covid vaccine.
Until the existence of that group is shown I don't understand how behavior is controlled for. Everyone claims to be following the rules. case in point, my mother in law is absolutely freaked out about covid. Has the vaccine. Masks. Distances etc. Except she breaks the rules whenever convenient. But in her mind these are necessary. She'll still complain about others who break the rules similarly. Lots of people are this way. You can't trust self reports and you can't follow that many people
Also, and more egregiously, there is a history of fake covid studies destined to make those on the 'side' of the anti vaxxers look bad. So my bayesian a priori estimate of the usefulness of studies on the other 'side' is shifted more to the distrust side.
Look at the table "Americans' Use of Face Masks, by Vaccination Status". 90% of the vaccinated still wear masks. 49% of the unvaxxed do.
The study hinges on a magical group of vax recipients that act as if covid doesn't exist now and behaved the same before the vax . There is little reason to believe this group exists in large numbers.
So why is mask wearing so correlated with taking a vaccine? I think you are suggesting one causation, yet the actual reason is probably the “hidden” correlate of partisanship. Lots of people use mask wearing to show party affiliation, and I would guess that party affiliation in the US is highly correlated with taking the vaccine or not.
Also you didn’t answer at all your original point “It means nothing as these studies rarely take into account confounding variables. For example the vaxxed are more likely to distance and stay at home”. Instead your link has nothing to do with correlation of distancing or staying at home. Changing the topic is a classic technique.
I'm just pointing out that the vaxxed are more likely to follow other safeguards, like wearing masks, which I imagine is also correlated with distancing. This seems obvious to me, and informs my a priori assumptions. If you have data that shows that those who wear masks are also more likely to ignore social distancing (a counterintuitive result indeed), I'd be happy to change my assessment.
We can argue all you like about correlations, but when you say “means nothing” you need a bit more data than handwaving at a single measurement.
Everyone understands correlations exist, but you can’t just dismiss their headline “5X” figure without something more substantive.
And please don’t jump to your inference that I was trying to say masks don’t work. HN guidelines: “Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.”. Edit: And to be clear, one minor point I was making was to agree with you that confounding variables exist.
I don’t care about correlations. I do care that you seemed to make a glib dismissal of the original article, and then you are failing to defend your dismissal and simply introducing a range of irrelevancies. Edit: perhaps justify why your opinion means anything compared with the data presented in original paper: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7037e1.htm