If the shots happened to take 8 doses to be completely delivered, by tracking shots instead of complete treatments as your denominator, you've just artificially deflated any concern level by 8 times.
100 deaths / 8,000,000 doses = 0.0000125 (in 80,000 people, one is killed - not too worrying, or so it would seem)
100 reactions / 1,000,000 treatments = 0.0001 (in 10,000 people, one is killed - uh oh)
The issue you are tracking is how many humans are impacted by the treatment. In the case of COVID-19 treatments (which are two-dose in the UK) - if you choose to track shots versus reports, you lose accuracy by a factor of 2, and this accuracy is skewed against safety. By tracking treatments, you get slower feedback, but it is accurate and supports the correct interpretation of safety levels.
Tracking shots may be partially useful as an early warning signal. Other than that though, it's not just not useful, it's completely wrong.
The "sobering" references the massive disconnect between what is typically reported by media, and what is reported in the system by doctors and nurses on behalf of, or in limited cases directly by, harmed people. If you read the entire report, and bear in mind these are under-reporting figures, you may - if you're lucky, perhaps - experience a moment of sobriety when it comes to the actual experienced level of safety of what's being assured as "safe".
I knew someone with a preexisting blood condition who got clotting after taking the vaccine. So for those people the chance is way higher. But the risks for clotting were not as well known at the time as they are now, and she didn't do her own research.
Physicians don't exactly do the research better than you do. They accept the standard line from their decades-old schooling, or CDC bulletins, or hospital administrators as gospel truth, and may occasionally update their priors in a year after attending a conference.
In the general case, a physician is obviously better than a patient in terms of being informed.
On the margin, however, a well-researched patient will almost always be better informed than a physician accustomed to the average patient. This is particularly relevant to the ~130 IQ HN populace.
> On the margin, however, a well-researched patient will almost always be better informed than a physician accustomed to the average patient. This is particularly relevant to the ~130 IQ HN populace.
It's quite dangerous and egotistical to think that you are in that group, though. When most people think they're a better than average driver, many are bound to be wrong.
If you think you're right about something and the doctor is wrong, get a second opinion. Don't assume you know better than a medical professional.
Someone responded with a good question but then deleted it: Aren't you allowed to disagree with your doctor?
Sure, in the sense that you can get second opinions if you're extra concerned about the topic.
If you're pregnant or have a blood clotting issue, by all means get a first and second opinion if you're worried about getting the vaccine.
But don't think that you are more qualified than medical professionals to understand the risks and side effects (unless of course you are a medical professional).
What you should be saying is that a more-informed person is less likely to make mistakes than a less-informed person.
You assume that doctors, in the couple of hours they may dedicate each day to catch up on all of the many plethora issues affecting all of their patients covering thousands of different areas of research that affect human health (and retain all of these things), is going to be more informed about the particular health issue affecting one person, who is extremely invested in this one aspect of their own health, and can dedicate the same or greater amount of their time researching that specific issue.
A specialist, possibly - but a general practitioner - unlikely.
"Nutjobs" is still a bit harsh, no? :) I do know a fair number of people who fall into the first category (but unfortunately, know far more in the second category).
I'd agree but I have never seen someone that said "I did my own research" in this context who is not a nutjob. "I did my own research" in this context deeply implies that there is a conspiracy going on. This disease has been the primary focus of the whole world for the last 1.5 years, all data is publicly available, and is publicly interpreted by countless independent top experts in the field frequently. If you "did your own research" and believe things to be opposite of countless independent experts are saying, you probably believe in a conspiracy around all this - that is nutjob territory to me. If you are researching a very niche, understudied subject, sure. But in contexts like this, you probably won't hear the words "I did my own research" from people who know what they are saying.
From what David Spiegelhalter said earlier it's about 1 in 250k for the under-30s. That's 0.0004%. The problem is that if you control for the right parameters the expected outcome is worse, possibly by multiple orders of magnitude, than that of being infected with covid.
"While the AstraZeneca vaccine has been the focus, other vaccines have also been reporting adverse events. Searching the EMA EV database for Moderna vaccine reports for deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism identified 29 DVTs, of which 12 also had pulmonary embolism; no reported deaths or fatal events [16]. Similarly, searching for the Pfizer vaccine reports, 13 DVTs were found in the same study period, from 17 February to 12 March, as this paper reporting on the AstraZeneca vaccine adverse events. With the Pfizer vaccine, 11 people also developed pulmonary embolism and two died [16]."
Seems to be the case that Pfizer and Moderna didn't get in as much trouble with clot risk I guess?
Agreed, but I doubt that the difference in # of AZ and Moderna/Pfizer doses administered is off by too many orders of magnitude [edit : on second thought, could be off by a factor of 10]. The central issue in my mind is the difference in populations since Americans have predominantly received Pfizer/Moderna while Brits have predominantly received AZ. Its possible that Brits have an intrinsically higher clot risk with the AZ preparation than Americans do with the Pfizer/Moderna vaccines (although, the J&J clots in the US certainly questions this idea too).
> The problem is that if you control for the right parameters the expected outcome is worse, possibly by multiple orders of magnitude, than that of being infected with covid.
How come? COVID infections have a high probability of causing blood clots.
Use a hypothetical set of parameters to study a subset of the population. For example it could be a yet unidentified genetic variant related to blood clotting. Or just whether or not you already had the disease. Statisticians try to identify these parameters with the limited data available.
Remember to divide by fully-vaccinated persons, not shots administered. It's not the shots that experience the blood clotting.
Also, bear in mind that adverse event reporting has been clocked (in pretty much every study) at under-reporting adverse reactions anywhere from a handful of times to hundreds of times (even for serious or fatal reactions).[0]
Finally, after you've accounted for those trifling caveats, you've now arrived at an approximation of the odds for a princely one adverse effect, that happened to be apparently causal enough to be readily discovered, and also accurately reported enough to be identified almost immediately.
There could be many others of course, complicated by genetics and unforeseen reactions with other medications or conditions, along with that not insignificant variable of time. (Ordinarily, for new substances injected intravenously, a generous several years is afforded to that one.)
You also don't know if there is a large demographic out there who share both a reluctance to sign up for medical trials, along with a propensity to exhibit an as-yet undetected adverse reaction. (Quite a reasonable proposition, if you think about it. Don't we always find things in the last place we look?)
And all this for a disease most people below average life-expectancy have little risk of dying from, even if they catch it and undergo no treatment, and for which safe, high-efficacy preventative measures and treatments already exist.[1]
I'll take 5 nines success chance.