So "<1%" means absolutely nothing without context. And the context is: if we do nothing, we run out of hospital beds. Period. Full stop.
Ignoring the massive financial burden on hospitals who are also not financially setup to have the entire hospital full of people sick with COVID - they are bleeding cash without elective surgeries. They can only bleed for so long without significant government intervention. The piddly sums being handed out for COVID patients that all the conspiracy theorists think the hospital is making hay off of is not enough to keep the doors open.
The population of NYC as of 2019 is 8.419 million. 8,419,000.[2]
NYC couldn't have more then 0.02% of its population in hospital at any given time. And that number is not available capacity - that's total. Generally at any given time 50 - 80% of those beds are in use for other patients since you don't build ICU capacity just to have it (remembering that ICU capacity is beds + equipment + supplies + staff).
[1] https://www.businessinsider.com.au/coronavirus-nyc-more-than...
[2] https://www.google.com/search?q=new%20york%20city%20populati...
Now that we have vaccines and people with natural immunity, I imagine the percentage of the population contracting covid and getting sufficiently sick is (should be?) going down. Hopefully that plus better therapeutics should keep things from sucking as bad again.
Of course, with large numbers of nurses quiting over vaccine mandates, the capacity is going down and things might suck again.
Single-digit percentages in most hospital systems.
If you're evaluating vaccine safety based on the opinions of healthcare professionals, there's good news for you.
https://www.ama-assn.org/press-center/press-releases/ama-sur...
> The American Medical Association (AMA) today released a new survey (PDF) among practicing physicians that shows more than 96 percent of surveyed U.S. physicians have been fully vaccinated for COVID-19, with no significant difference in vaccination rates across regions. Of the physicians who are not yet vaccinated, an additional 45 percent do plan to get vaccinated.
(That one's pre-mandates, incidentally.)
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/28/nyregion/vaccine-health-c...
> As the vaccination mandate went into full effect on Monday, 92 percent of the state’s more than 650,000 hospital and nursing home workers had received at least one vaccine dose, state officials said. That was a significant increase from a week ago, when 82 percent of the state’s nursing home workers and at least 84 percent of hospital workers had received at least one dose.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/09/28/nc-hospital...
> Novant Health spokeswoman Megan Rivers told The Washington Post that more than 99 percent of the system’s roughly 35,000 employees have followed the mandatory vaccination program. She said in a statement that Novant Health was “thrilled” those who chose to be vaccinated have given patients and visitors “better protection against COVID-19 regardless of where they are in our health system.”
For any given area, the question that must be asked is if a COVID outbreak were to occur does that given area have the health resources to manage an outbreak. <1% risk is meaningless if you don't have an ICU bed. It becomes a public policy problem when someone in a car accident can not get adequate resources or if nurses are doing 18 hours shifts.
COVID’s risk isn’t symmetric across the population. It is definitely extremely dangerous though and killed 700,000 Americans, for instance.
> <1%
Risk numbers are totally useless when not stating the time over which the risk is incurred. A 1% lifetime risk is very different from a 1% daily risk.
For example, the 0.89% population hospitalization rate in the last 1.5 years for the unvaccinated from the article you linked corresponds to a 38% chance of hospitalization over a 80-year lifespan. (Note that this is just an example to point out the problem with GP's reasoning, in reality this is an overestimation as it neglects that you build immunity after an infection).
No. You can treat the risk of being hospitalized from COVID as a one-time event, but the risk of catching COVID is a continuous event until you've either caught it or it has been eradicated.
> Risk numbers are totally useless when not stating the time over which the risk is incurred. A 1% lifetime risk is very different from a 1% daily risk.
In this specific case the timeframe is not relevant. The metric here was "probability that you will be hospitalized IF you are infected with COVID-19". That means the timeline is "however long it takes to get better from Covid". Adding "lifetime risk" to that doesn't make sense, and "daily risk" makes even less sense (for example, someone who is sick for 130 days, is admitted to a hospital, and dies, would be counted as adding 1 "positive day" and 129 "negative days", making it an awful metric).
That's a good metric, but it's not the metric the numbers GP quoted were for. Those numbers were for the metric "probability that you would catch COVID-19 and be hospitalized with it over the past 1.5 years". That's fundamentally something different.
What's your alluding to is also known as infection hospitalization rate, and while numbers differ (it's hard to accurately count infections), in the unvaccinated population it's generally somewhere around 5%.
Where did you see that? I looked up GP and didn't find that 1.5 year time anywhere. Furthermore, it makes no sense in the context of GP, where they said:
> > For example, do you know what the risk of hospitalization from Covid is when unvaccinated?
> If you said >50%, you would be in good company. It's the most common answer.
I don't believe there is any place on earth where you can poll people and reach an average response of >50% to the question "what is the probability that you would catch covid AND be hospitalized for it over the next 1.5 years, if you don't get the vaccine". Let's think for a moment what that would require: first off, it would require a large proportion of the unvaccinated population to get COVID. Second, a large proportion of those unvaccinated infected people would need to be hospitalized. So basically, it would require a place on earth that doesn't yet have significant natural immunity due to previous infections, and doesn't have anywhere close to herd immunity due to vaccinations, and somehow, a place like that would need to be ravaged by COVID in the future. Furthermore, it would need a strain of COVID that hospitalizes something like 70% of those infected, compared to current strains of COVID, which hospitalize something like 1% of infected (remember, most COVID infections do not cause symptoms and thus are not counted in infected counts).
This scenario is so outlandish it is very very clearly impossible. It's so outlandish that you will not be able to find a population where most people would believe such a scenario. Instead, what GP was likely referring to, was the "risk that you are hospitalized IF you catch COVID" (where, again, people overestimate the risks, but it's less outlandish).
In the appendix of the Gallup link from GP, the <1% figure is calculated by dividing the total number of hospitalizations through August 9, 2021 (which is roughly 1.5 year after the pandemic started*) by the average unvaccinated population through that same timeframe. That doesn't result in hospitalization risk if infected, it results in hospitalization risk if infected multiplied by risk of infection.
* Actually, now that I'm looking at the actual CDC data instead of taking their word, the figure they used is for hospitalizations from August 1, 2020 through August 9, 2021, so it should be a year instead of 1.5 year (and their adjustment for reduction of unvaccinated population due to vaccinations is off, so the 0.89% is an underestimation). Doesn't matter for the point I'm making here, though (except to reinforce that we should leave statistics to the professionals).
> I don't believe there is any place on earth where you can poll people and reach an average response of >50% to the question "what is the probability that you would catch covid AND be hospitalized for it over the next 1.5 years, if you don't get the vaccine".
I agree, the people asked probably interpreted the question differently. This makes presenting the result of that question in opposition to the <1% figure misleading, since they are numbers for different things.
> current strains of COVID, which hospitalize something like 1% of infected
This is and cannot possibly be correct. The CDC reports that the US has had 3.1 million COVID-19 hospitalizations since 1st of August 2020, on a population of 329 million. If only 1% of infected is hospitalized, that means by now everybody must've had COVID. That's clearly not the case. Furthermore, if we add hospitalizations from before August 2020, clearly hospitalizations of the population already exceed that 1% number.
You're right though that it's hard to accurately calculate infection hospitalization rate, because counting infections is hard. It has been reported to be somewhere around ~5% in the unvaccinated population, but I can see it being anywhere between 2% and 8% (probably depends on the characteristics of the population under study as well). Since August 2020 the US also reported 39.2 million cases, which gives an upper bound of 7.9%, and assuming three-quarters of infections are asymptomatic gives a lower bound of 2.0%. Note that since a significant part of the population has been vaccinated during that timeframe, and the vaccines protect better against hospitalization than infection, the current infection hospitalization rate is lower than that in the unvaccinated.
That interpretation is not supported by the source linked by GP. The risk you allude to (infection hospitalization rate) was generally reported as ~5% (it's probably halved now that half the population is vaccinated). See for example [0], the first Google hit I got, or the CDC COVID tracker [1], where reported hospitalizations divided by reported infections gives 3.6%.
[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7895685/ [1] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidvi...
You can’t do apples to apples with things like ‘getting bitten by sharks’ or whatever things get dragged out in typical risk comparisons. That’s why this is hard.
This is obviously misleading: the pandemic is still ongoing. We're now at 3.1mm hospitalizations, does this mean risk has grown from 0.8->1% between Aug 9 and today? Or that in May 2020 the risk was essentially nil?
Once infected, risk of hospitalization (across all ages) is currently 7-8% (using 7-day rolling averages from CDC). Lower than people assume, but still concerning.
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#new-hospital-admis... https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#trends_dailycases|...
Research keeps increasing the percentage for people who have "long Covid" symptoms and the length of their duration.
And I didn't have a symptom like losing my smell which seems to be very common. Losing your sense of smell for a very long time really sucks.
People are vastly underestimating the risks of actual Covid and vastly overestimating any risks from the vaccine.
And this is before we talk about the fact that people are dying of treatable, non-Covid diseases because Covid patients who won't get a vaccine are clogging the hospitals.
You are absolutely correct: if the only reason for not getting the vaccine is concern over vaccine side effects, then take the vaccine.
Seems like most people in this thread hear "Scandinavian authorities are stopping the vaccination program", when the recommendation is rather to switch vaccines for men under a certain age.
The ethical consideration is not particularly complicated, and Scandinavian health authorities are not risk-averse idiots. They simply care about an equation that might lead to a couple of saved lives in total. I think this level of care speaks highly of the intentions of the healthcare systems in Scandinavia.
> The ethical consideration is not particularly complicated, and Scandinavian health authorities are not risk-averse idiots. They simply care about an equation that might lead to a couple of saved lives in total. I think this level of care speaks highly of the intentions of the healthcare systems in Scandinavia.
In a vacuum, I agree.
The unfortunate reality is that many will take this in the "Scandinavian authorities are stopping the vaccination program", as you're seeing already here, and that confusion is likely to be weaponized by antivax activists.
I don't have numbers for Scandinavia as a whole, but 95% of Norway's population have stated that they will get vaccinated, and we're approaching that number. Antivaxxer disinformation is not a problem that has significant effect here.
While it's a tragedy that the USA and others have large populations that are susceptible to propaganda from malignant forces, it's ultimately a matter of US interior politics. It's a whole separate question that not something other countries should shape their politics to conform to. There's very little the international community can do about US poverty, its ridiculously polarized political climate, education system, power imbalances and so on.
It's not that I don't care at all; I can see the mathematics of it. But that kind of butterfly effect consideration will quickly lead you down a rabbit hole that prevents you from doing the right thing because someone is holding a gun to a stranger's head.
"As a general rule, the ICU cardiac injury described in COVID-19 illness is subclinical and largely reflected by a minor elevation of cardiac troponin, whereas CIRM is characterized by a clinical syndrome often warranting hospitalization, dramatic ECG changes, and very large elevations of cardiac troponin that are sustained over time. " "Again, children are not a high-risk group for COVID-19 respiratory illness, and yet they are the high-risk group for CIRM." Source : https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014628062...
And before people bring up side effects or other long term damage, most people don’t die in car accidents and suffer from ptsd, whiplash, broken bones etc.
Yet bring this up and you’re automatically an anti Vaxxer.
People are absolutely terrible at evaluating personal risk.
One of my coworkers drove across Canada to visit home at one point instead of taking a flight because of covid.
Young people should be more concerned with staying away from opioids, social media, friends that are racing cars, and binge drinking at parties.
Yet, the media has 14 year olds terrified of covid.
Lunacy.
There is one very important difference - reducing risk of death because of COVID-19 can be done very easily. Not so with driving.
But the groups do not match perfectly so you have to recalculate some https://wonder.cdc.gov/ucd-icd10.html
I would only make that guess if you brought up car accidents and were opposed to driving test requirements, wearing seat belts, car safety regulations, etc.
In general, sure, but that's a bit like arguing people should be able to drive drunk because drunks are more likely to survive a car accident.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/odds-favo...
> A retrospective study of nearly 8,000 trauma patients found that seven percent of people who came in sober died of their injuries, while those who were hurt while drunk only died one percent of the time. A positive blood alcohol level seemed to increase the likelihood of survival, even after the researchers took into account the age of the patient and the severity of the injury. Trauma patients who came in to the hospital drunk were discharged sooner, too.
The impact on others can be significant, and important.
> we are going to put your kids at risk from the vaccine
A bit on the nose, don't you think?
To argue that COVID is not a threat to children, but the vaccines are, is an inconsistent position. Children are, statistically, at quite low risk from both.
As a parent, I'm quite comfortable with the idea of my children taking the very very very small risk of a vaccine reaction in order to not go grandparent-less.
Why have pediatric ICU beds been near or at capacity and care as a whole on the brink of failure from months of completely fucked working conditions for the doctors and nurses?
Along with other kids not dealing with COVID having life saving medical procedures/treatments indefinitely delayed until beds are back down below a certain fill for some amount of time? I've personally had to see effects this in my extended family.
Seriously - what is wrong with you? What makes you have to say things/come to conclusions like this when you're very clearly factually incorrect?
https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/coronavirus/pediatric-hospital-b...
https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/patient-flow/number-of...
https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20210816/u-s-reports-record-...
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/kids-sick-covid-are-fil...
https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/24/health/covid-hospitalizations...
https://www.baltimoresun.com/coronavirus/bs-md-pediatric-cov...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/09/02/picu-hosp...
For example, here's actual pedriatic ICU data from Seattle metro area with ~4M people. I bet this never made the news.
MARY BRIDGE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL, 55.5%, 6.1 of 11.0 beds used
SEATTLE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL, 83.0%, 71.4 of 86.0 beds used
https://datacentral.kitsapsun.com/covid-19-hospital-capacity
Edit: Turns out that the KitsapSun app has county-level data for all of USA. For Tarrant county (your top 2 links), right now the pedriatic ICU data is:
COOK CHILDRENS MEDICAL CENTER, 82.5%, 34.3 of 41.6 beds used
Not great, but not months-long-near-capacity-brink-of-failure situation either. The adult ICU situation is much worse, hopefully it will retreat in the coming weeks.
https://datacentral.kitsapsun.com/covid-19-hospital-capacity...
Where did you get that number? As of Sep 29, 2021, US reported 43,289,203 cases where 3,047,033 of them are hospitalized, including vaccinated. This is nowhere close to <1%. I'm pretty sure the number could be much higher with saner medical insurance system.
I think a better assessment of risk comes from the UK data https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
From Table 3, we learn that somebody unvaccinated in their 20's has a chance of 10/100,000 to end up in the hospital over a period of 28 days. So something like .1% per year. Vaccination reduces the risk by a factor of O(10), old age increases it by a factor of O(10). These data refer to a recent snapshot of a 28-day period, and I'd feel safer to assume that the next month looks more like the previous month than March 2020.
The correct answers to hospitalization risk can be calculated using data from the Department of Health and Human Services (via HealthData.gov) and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). One needs only the following figures: 1) the population of vaccinated and unvaccinated people 2) total hospitalizations resulting from COVID-19 3) hospitalizations of vaccinated people. We used data through August 9, 2021, one week before the survey was fielded. At that time, total hospitalizations from COVID-19 were estimated to be 2.6 million, with 7,608 vaccinations found among vaccinated people. The size of the vaccinated and unvaccinated populations was nearly equal on August 9 (with 168 million vaccinated and 163 million unvaccinated).
A simplistic analysis of these numbers would yield hospitalization rates of 0.005% for the vaccinated population (1 case in 22,118) and 1.6% for the unvaccinated population (1 case in 62), but those numbers exaggerate the benefits of the vaccine because the unvaccinated population confronted many more days of risk, since vaccination was gradually rolled out starting in December of 2020. For that reason, we take the average population totals over the relevant periods for each population (March 1, 2020-Aug. 9, 2021 for the unvaccinated population and Dec. 15, 2020,-Aug. 9, 2021, for the vaccinated population). The adjusted population of vaccinated people comes to 83 million and 295 million for the vaccinated population, since the entire U.S. population was unvaccinated -- except a small number of participants in clinical trials --up until December of 2020.
Using these adjusted figures, we calculate that the hospitalization rate for the vaccinated population is 0.01% (or 1 in 10,914), and the rate for unvaccinated adults is 0.89% (or 1 case in 112 people). In both cases, therefore, the correct answer is less than one percent, but the implied efficacy rate of vaccination is 99% at preventing hospitalizations. This is calculated as the hospitalization rate for the unvaccinated minus the hospitalization rate for the vaccinated, divided by the unvaccinated rate. In other words, it is the percentage decrease in hospitalization risk. This high rate of protection -- even against Delta -- is consistent with a recent article published in the Lancet, which reviewed large-scale empirical data from the United States and around the world.
Some may argue that patients may have been hospitalized as a result of COVID but not diagnosed as such. We think this is highly unlikely to result in significant downward bias in the rates of hospitalization risk since testing at hospitals became widespread after only a few weeks at the start of the pandemic, and the vast majority of hospitalizations would have occurred since May of 2020, given data on deaths, which are more comprehensively documented. Nonetheless, using various modeling assumptions, CDC epidemiologists estimate that the actual number of hospitalizations may be 1.8 times higher than the reported number. If these estimates are accurate, the true rate of hospitalization risk for the unvaccinated population is 1.6% and as high as 0.2% for the vaccinated population. In either case, the public's misunderstanding of risk is roughly just as inaccurate. One criticism of these inflated estimates is that they assume that many people were hospitalized while asymptomatically carrying the SARS-CoV-2 virus, leading to an undetected case. The problem with this reasoning is that it would count people admitted to the hospital for non-COVID reasons who coincidentally had an asymptomatic infection. These cases were correctly omitted from official statistics since the absence of symptoms cannot cause hospitalization.
A more serious limitation is that we count each admission from COVID-19 into a hospital as a unique person. In fact, we know from scholarly research that some patients are readmitted multiple times. One paper estimates that 9% of COVID-19 patients were readmitted to the hospital. This implies that, at minimum, our hospitalization estimates should be multiplied by 0.91 to capture only hospitalizations of unique individuals. Doing so would shrink both hospitalization risk estimates, and they would still both be well below 1%.
That is, the normal way someone interprets the question "what is the chance you're hospitalized due to covid" is "what is the chance you're hospitalized due to a covid infection", while you're actually asking "what is the chance you, a randomly chosen person, will be hospitalized due to covid [in the next year]". They're conditioning on a time window, and not a case rate.
Another way of looking at their approach is to consider what happens over the lifetime of a person. If you have a .89% chance of being hospitalized due to covid this year, what's the chance over your lifetime? Unless the risk drastically drops, it's something like a 30% chance of being hospitalized over the next 40 years, or for me, very close to a 50% chance of being hospitalized over my entire life.
For example, do you know what the risk of hospitalization from Covid is when unvaccinated?
If you said >50%, you would be in good company. It's the most common answer.
But what's the actual risk?
<1%.
When vaccinated, the risk is even lower! Yet people are still more afraid of Covid than myriad other risks we accept on a daily basis and don't even think about, and certainly don't rearrange our lives around. For whatever reason, we are avoiding a basic cost benefit analysis and vastly overestimate the risks.
"92% overstate the risk that unvaccinated people will be hospitalized, and 62% overstate the risk for vaccinated people"
https://news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/354938/adults-estimat...